


and i'd love it if we made it

by frougge



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: College AU, Established Relationship, M/M, Mark Lee (NCT)-centric, Moving In Together, happy (late) birthday kinnie!!!!!!, roommates au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24669913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frougge/pseuds/frougge
Summary: Mark glances at Donghyuck, who’s eying the living room, and takes the chance to outline his profile with his gaze, slowly taking it all in; they’re going to spend the nearest future finally living together, something which they spent most of their high school years planning for.He couldn’t be more excited.(or; mark and hyuck move in together.)
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 16
Kudos: 74





	and i'd love it if we made it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tofugumball](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tofugumball/gifts).



> happy birthday kinnie!!!! cant believe you're a gemini haha thats so crazy couldve sworn u were a pisces... anyway! i love you so much nd despite it being humiliatingly late i hope you enjoy this <333 happy birthday kinnie:) they ain't ready. now watch this message go crazy
> 
> som notes:  
> \- this takes place in warsaw... they r polish people thats all i can say<3 #NCTnaStadionieNarodowym2021. that being said the kpoppies being polish nd saying kurwa concept is plagiarized off of [emmie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/joonswig/pseuds/joonswig) no one say a thing..  
> \- in my head this is in the same universe as [the stealing tires au](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23264617) (2 yrs after it) but that takes place in the us... but its in the same universe because yes it is <3 no it isn't <3 just accept it.
> 
> title comes from a 1975 song of the same name
> 
> theres also a playlist 4 it [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2LEDXCP0kqBm7Sj7e2SmJF?si=oY3wDxaiR8WcehsaR_zviw)! love wins

“This place doesn’t even look that nice,” Mark says, setting down the box he was holding on top of another two. He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand, taking a minute to breathe, feeling embarrassingly winded; they’ve been doing this for the past hour, almost, and they’ve still got several boxes to go, of mostly Donghyuck’s things. “How much are we going to be paying for rent, again?”

“You’re not seeing the full picture,” Donghyuck huffs, sounding exasperated though his lips turn up in a smile anyway as soon as he meets Mark’s eyes. “We’re going to recreate one of those home decorating shows and it’s going to bang so hard once we’re finished.”

“Is it?”

“Yes,” Donghyuck insists. He reaches for Mark’s hand, pulling him close, and if Mark makes a show of being against it only to fit himself neatly into Donghyuck’s side, then it’s very obviously just the fatigue he’s feeling taking a bit of a toll on him. “We’re going to repaint the walls so they’re not this ugly drab gray—and we’re going to get like, a ton of plants, too, and photos with our hyungs and shit.”

“Can we even paint the walls?” Mark murmurs, a bit doubtful. Hopefully they can, considering that the current color makes the whole apartment appear terribly somber, but they’re only renting the place.

“We can.” Donghyuck’s conviction only lasts a few moments before he adds, “I mean. I think we can? What’s the worst that can happen, anyway?”

“We get evicted?” Mark laughs, making his whole body—and by extension, Donghyuck’s—shake. “We get sued for property damage?”

“I think what’s more likely is that they’ll thank us for making this apartment stop looking like a shit hole.”

“So you _do_ think it looks like a shit hole!”

“Well—now, yeah,” Donghyuck says, “but it is going to look sexy as hell when we’re done with it. Plus it has a balcony. I’d like to think that makes the whole thing worth it.”

“There’s so many other apartments in Warsaw that have balconies,” Mark says, glancing at Donghyuck, who’s eying the living room, and takes the chance to outline his profile with his gaze, slowly taking it all in; they’re going to spend the nearest future finally living together, something which they spent most of their high school years planning for. He couldn’t be more excited. “I’m sure we could’ve found one that was nicer—and cheaper, too.”

“We are relatively close to the centre, though,” Donghyuck muses, as if that makes the whole thing worth it. Maybe it does, to a degree. “I know you’re not mad into it, but brutalist architecture really does have a certain appeal to it.”

Mark doesn’t respond, giving Donghyuck a rather dry look when he turns to him.

“Oh, come on,” Donghyuck lets go off Mark’s hand to shove him, “you’ve got to admit it has a vibe to it.”

“It’s literally just concrete.”

“That’s the vibe,” Donghyuck says, grinning. Mark’s not completely certain that he’s actually serious. “What more could you want?”

“It’s literally just fucking concrete,” he says, again, “or something. Do you really want to spend your first precious years of adulthood here?”

“Okay, tone that down, you’re starting to sound like Doyoung,” Donghyuck says, “and it’s really not as bad as you’re making it out to be. It’s a style. An aesthetic. It’s—well, it’s kind of nice. I think so, at least.”

Mark gives an exaggerated sigh, shrugging. “I guess I’ll just have to get used to it,” he says, just managing to twist out of reach when Donghyuck tries to jab his side, fingers catching on the fabric of Mark’s hoodie. Mark retaliates by kicking at his ankles before reaching to shove Donghyuck—and if in the midst of it, they end up knocking over the box of their kitchen supplies, well. That’s for them to worry about.

(And potentially for Taeil and Taeyong to worry about as well, considering they’re waiting in the parking lot with the rest of their boxes.)

.

The overwhelming consensus amongst their hyungs regarding their apartment is that they’ve got shit taste in decor.

“No offense, but your living room sucks ass,” Yuta tells them, the first to visit after they’ve finished unpacking most of their boxes and made their apartment somewhat livable, a good two weeks after moving in. They’re yet to hold a housewarming party—mostly to use as an excuse to gather up their friend group and do nothing all day—but that still seems ages away. “Would it kill you to get some decorations?”

“Yes,” Mark says.

“I don’t think you have a place to speak, hyung,” Donghyuck says. He’s sprawled out on the couch, mindless of their guest, while Mark’s doing his best to be a good host, awkwardly standing next to Yuta as he surveys the room. “Your decorations consist of empty Monster cans stacked above your kitchen counters.”

“And? What’s your point?”

“My point is that’s the literal definition of shitty decor.”

“It gets the work done,” Yuta says, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he strides towards their balcony, checking out the view as if he hadn’t done that five times in the past week, when he came over on the pretense of helping Mark unpack. “I don’t know, couldn’t you at least hang up some pictures? A poster? I think the _Cats_ (2019) Jason Derulo poster me and Jungwoo have really spices things up.”

“See, I thought that as well,” Mark agrees, nodding, “but Donghyuck isn’t letting me hang up my Poirot poster in the living room.”

“I’m sorry I’m homophobic towards hags,” Donghyuck says and Mark turns to glare at him, but he’s not even paying attention, too busy scrolling through his phone. “Plus that man creeps me the hell out. I think it’s the mustache.”

“As much as I’d like to agree with you, Mark, the mustache does give me a bit of a stroke,” Yuta says. At least he’s apologetic, Mark thinks, though he sends him a disappointed look anyway. “Photoshop the mustache out, though, and he’s the hottest person I’ve seen?”

Donghyuck snorts. “You’re shit at damage control. Do better, king.”

“At least he tried,” Mark says, to which Donghyuck rolls his eyes. “Anyway, hyung, is it really that bad?”

Yuta presses his lips into a thin line, narrowing his eyes. “…no? I mean, I guess he has some sexy moments, so—”

“—I meant our apartment,” Mark cuts him off, “though I really think you should put some more respect to Poirot’s name. He’s really not as bad as you two make him out to be.”

“I said he has some sexy moments!” Yuta protests while Donghyuck snickers from the couch, adding absolutely nothing to the conversation. “That’s got to be worth something, no?”

“I—you’re just digging yourself a deeper hole, at this point,” Mark shakes his head, “but whatever. What do you think about our apartment? And be honest, hyung.”

“Yeah, be honest, bitch.”

“It’s, uh,” Yuta stammers, eyes verging on panic as he glances between Mark and Donghyuck, “it’s got potential?”

“It’s boring, that’s what it is,” Johnny says in response to the same question less than a week later, when he, Jaehyun, and Taeyong make a pitstop at Mark and Donghyuck’s apartment, lovingly dubbed the dreamie suite, on their way… somewhere. Mark might’ve missed most of the long-winded explanation Johnny gave as the three of them bounded past Mark into the rest of the apartment less than ten minutes ago. “It’s even worse than Doyoung’s apartment. I think that tells you all you need to know.”

Jaehyun hums in agreement from where he’s taking up half their balcony, leaning on the railing and half-heartedly snapping photos—of himself or the city, Mark’s not sure. “The view’s pretty sweet, though.”

“The decor is a bit… bland,” Taeyong manages, face scrunched up as though it pains him to say so. “It’s still a work in progress, isn’t it? I’m sure you’ll make it look really nice in like, no time.”

“We already would have, if Mark didn’t have shitty taste,” Donghyuck sighs, pressing a hand to his heart and playing victim. Taeyong, still naive enough to be convinced by his tactics, apparently, nods slowly and wraps an arm around Donghyuck’s waist, reaching to ruffle his hair in comfort. “He didn’t even let me place my Taylor Swift pillow on the couch. I think that would’ve helped a lot.”

“It, uh, it certainly would’ve been a choice,” Taeyong says, eyes practically begging Johnny for assistance.

“I let you place the pillow there,” Mark says, if only to defend himself from looking like the problem child in his hyungs’ eyes, “I just said, if you place the pillow there, I’ll hang up my _Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice_ poster up. I think it’s only fair.”

“Do you see what I have to deal with?” Donghyuck asks, “and again, don’t you ever compare my girl to that atrocity.”

“It’s a good movie!”

“It’s really not a good movie,” Johnny says, maneuvering his way to the couch. He flops down right next to Mark, who’s leaning on the armrest, and pats him on the shoulder. “Get some taste, babe.”

“I, yeah, I’ve never seen a worse movie,” Jaehyun confirms, stepping back into the apartment. He sends Mark a rather pitiful look, as if his taste in movies is that much better.

“You watch shitty het romcoms almost exclusively,” Mark tells him.

“One, they’re not shitty, and two, they might be het, but they, uh,” Jaehyun stammers, brows pulling together.

“They’re still fundamental players for the gay rights movement.”

“Yeah, what Hyuck said,” Jaehyun says, tilting his chin at Donghyuck in thanks as he makes his way to sit down on the couch next to Johnny, falling into his side naturally. “What exactly does _Batman v Superman_ have?”

“It’s like—okay, so _maybe_ it’s not the best movie, but it’s—it’s, uh, I don’t know, it’s fun to watch,” Mark stammers. He can hear Donghyuck barely holding back his laughter from next to him and doesn’t have to look at Taeyong to see him sporting the same doubtful expression as Johnny and Jaehyun. “It’s not that bad! Come on.”

“Mark just likes it because he’s into Henry Cavill,” Donghyuck says, because he loves putting Mark in deep shit, apparently. “Why else do you think he watched _The Witcher_?”

“I like Sapkowski’s work!”

“You like Geralt,” Donghyuck says. “You’re the gay I don’t respect.”

“I don’t like Geralt—”

“—it’s okay if you like Geralt,” Taeyong says slowly, sounding like he doesn’t believe his words. “He’s… the wig he has is terrible and the yellow contacts are definitely a choice, but I guess, uh, I guess I can sort of see where you’re coming from?”

“I’ll say I don’t get it, period, and I’m with Hyuck on the no Cavill poster front.”

“That’s because Donghyuck’s your favorite.”

“You’re both my favorite,” Jaehyun says, ever so diplomatic, and Mark doesn’t believe a second of it. “Keep up the Cavill stannery, though, and that’s gonna change.”

“Anyway, since you asked for our tips—”

“—we didn’t ask for shit—”

“—since you asked for our tips,” Johnny insists, sending Donghyuck a look, “maybe you could try going a little ham and painting your walls? So at least they’re not this ugly white. Ugly gray, actually. Almost dirty. Are they actually dirty?”

“That’s a charm of the place you’re just going to have to learn how to love,” Donghyuck sighs, resting his head on Taeyong’s shoulder, “apparently painting the walls would be a breach of contract and as much as I’d be willing to risk it, Mark’s a pussy and is dead set on keeping them like this.”

“I don’t want to pay any damage fees,” Mark argues, swatting away Johnny’s arm when he tries to pinch his side, “or lose our security deposit. Having a little bit of color’s really not worth the risk.”

“Of course the homophobe’s gonna say that.”

“I think a little color would do wonders here, though,” Taeyong muses. Donghyuck sticks out his tongue at Mark and Mark rolls his eyes, pushing the waves of fondness that rumble through his stomach down. “Make it look less empty and shit like that.”

“Hyung, you’ve been on my side this whole time and I’m so thankful for that,” Donghyuck starts, “but I do have to point out that your walls are literally white.”

“They’re not white.”

“They are,” Mark pipes up, “which discredits your initial point re: painting the walls.”

“It’s just the base,” Taeyong whines, as if that makes a difference. “You’ve seen the paintings on the walls in our apartment. The walls aren’t _just_ white, and that’s the whole point.”

Jaehyun hums. “We do go a little crazy sometimes and draw shit on our walls.”

“Like three-year-olds?” Johnny asks, rather amused.

“Do you do it to feel young again?” Donghyuck asks. It’s walking on thin ice, definitely considering Taeyong’s the one holding him up, but he doesn't seem to pay much attention to that, eyes sparkling in excitement as he adds, “to feel quirky?”

“To feel like you don’t fit in?”

“To—”

“—okay,” Taeyong cuts in, just as Donghyuck was going to hit him with his second shady AF comeback. Donghyuck and Mark, for once on the same team, share a rather mournful look. “We’re really not as old as you make us out to be.”

“Well, not Jaehyun,” Mark says. Jaehyun sends him a look at the unexpected defense; despite everything Donghyuck’s taught him, Mark’s apparently no great at switching sides and winning favors from their hyungs.

Who would’ve thought.

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Donghyuck says, twisting his face, “you and Johnny are pushing thirty, though.”

“We’re literally only twenty-four,” Taeyong’s arm slips from around Donghyuck’s shoulders—apparently this was the breaking point—and he joins the rest of them on the couch, teetering on the armrest. Jaehyun reaches an arm around him, fingers smoothing his waist almost as if to placate him.

“Almost twenty-five,” Donghyuck corrects him, now with nothing to lose.

“There’s still more than half a year to go before that,” Johnny scowls without any real annoyance in the gesture. He seems mostly amused, though with how close his hand is to Mark, it seems as if he’s just itching to shove him off the armrest. “Even more, in Taeyong’s case.”

“Thanks,” Taeyong says with a rather heavy sigh. “But—coming back to the actual point—I do think vandalizing your walls could make it feel like you’re actually living here. And you can always cover it up with something when the landlord pops by for a check-in or something.”

“There’s no chance that won’t get us busted.”

“No, no, maybe he’s onto something,” Donghyuck says, “vandalizing is, as we all know, sexy. Living in my mind rent free twenty-four seven and all."

“Just get something to cover it first,” Jaehyun says, “in case your landlord pops by to be crazy and busts you and shit. Something that’s not a Henry Cavill poster.”

“See, you didn’t have to add that last bit, hyung.”

“Didn’t want to give you the wrong message,” Jaehyun grins, reaching over Johnny to push Mark’s shoulder just enough to make him sway on the armrest. “If you ever put up the poster, I’m not stepping foot in here again.”

“Maybe you should bring it out, then, Mark,” Donghyuck says, finally crossing the room to join the rest of them, coming to rest his elbow on Mark’s shoulder rather uncomfortably for them both, but Mark revels in the way Donghyuck looks at him, anyway. It’s also a solid reminder that they are going to need to get arm chairs for the living room, soon, their couch not big enough for even half their friend group. “Ward these incels off while we still can. This is a strictly chad apartment.”

“Really?”

Donghyuck only last a second before he shakes his head, as Mark’d expected. “On second thought, I’d much rather bear the cross of their company than have Cavill’s likeliness fucking up the aesthetics of our apartment.”

“He’s not that bad,” Mark argues.

Johnny hums in half-hearted disagreement when Mark looks to him for support, while Jaehyun just shrugs at him and Taeyong visibly tries not to wince. When he turns back to Donghyuck, Donghyuck’s looking at him in that self-satisfied way of his, grinning, and, really, Mark should be more annoyed than he is.

“I hate all of you,” he says, not meaning a single part of it.

.

In the end, they never actually get to spray painting their wall.

“It was suggested by hags,” Donghyuck whines, when they’re pressed against each other in Mark’s bed, watching _Murder in Mesopotamia._ It’s only slightly more comfortable than cuddling on the couch would be, but it’s not like Mark’s complaining. “That takes all the fun edginess out of it.”

“It’s still vandalizing our walls,” Mark points out.

“Yeah, in a very—in an almost legal way,” Donghyuck signs, twisting so he’s lying on his back and facing the ceiling, the show long forgotten as the credits start rolling. Mark reaches to pause it, letting comfortable silence flood the room. “It’s not as sexy.”

“How is it legal if we’d still be going against our contract?”

Donghyuck rolls his eyes, not bothering to mask his smile when he looks at Mark, letting the fondness shine cleanly through in his eyes. “It just is, trust me,” he says. “We’ll figure out some other way to decorate.”

“Any possibility I could convince you to let me put up the _Batman v. Superman_ poster?”

“Not at all,” Donghyuck says, “it’s a little too cishet man for me. It just crosses a line. Sets gay rights back like, five or eight years, I’d say.”

“Mhm,” Mark hums, sitting up just slightly, leaning on his elbow as he twists to face Donghyuck. “What about my EXO poster?”

“Which one?”

“The EXO-SC one,” Mark says. “With just Sehun and Chanyeol? You love Sehun. And I’d have to go check but I’m pretty sure it’s got a sexy piss yellow background.”

“I’m a feminist,” Donghyuck starts, as his fingers trail to the hem of Mark’s hoodie, twisting into the fabric lightly, “but I guess I could be convinced. Just this once.”

“Just this once,” Mark repeats with a grin, leaning down to kiss Donghyuck.

.

Mark’s bike creaks loudly under his weight as he pedals down the street, halfway back to his and Donghyuck’s apartment. In all fairness, he should’ve probably taken the bus, given how hard fatigue was currently hitting his muscles, but it’s too late to backtrack now. He leans heavily against the handles as he makes a turn, just narrowly missing the curb, and exhales in relief when he sees the alleyway is empty, wasting no time in jumping off his bike and letting it thump to the ground.

If only he’d been able to actually pass his driver’s exam and get a license—not to mention a car—he’d be able to drive to and from university. At least he’s being environmentally friendly, now, but what does that give him, if he just looks like a loser?

He really should try to persuade Taeyong to give him driving lessons, now that Doyoung’s sworn to never do that again. Yuta might be worth a try, too, thought that would likely just end up with them getting into several car accidents.

Maybe he’ll just stick with bikes for now.

Mark glances around the street, taking a brief survey of his surroundings as he waits idly for his heart to calm down enough so he can continue his way home. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, large trashcans stacked against the wall not far from where he’s standing, and—

“—holy shit,” he lets out a disbelieving laugh at the sight of the large Żabka sign, frog and all, making his way towards it. Without even thinking, he reaches out to touch it, hands sliding over the green paint, laughing even louder when he realizes it’s real. “Holy shit.”

It’s exactly what their living room needs.

As he should’ve expected, calling Donghyuck is unsuccessful. He’d assume it was because Donghyuck is busy—not because he doesn’t want to answer, even though that’s the truth—if not for the fact that Donghyuck texts him almost immediately after declining.

_tf u want_

_i hope its important enough for a phone  
call or i’m blocking u again_

_u wouldn’t_

_i would_

_O__O_

_but srsly what do u want_

_nd hurry up_

_me nd taeil <3 r getting boba_

_i thot u said u had class_

_i diddd_

_just left early_

_give us everything quirky rebel king!_

_shut upp it was boring as hell_

_rly should just drop out_

_god that’d be the dream_

_wed do nothing but vibe all day_

_nd stream red velvet.. yeah_

_anywayyy asking 4 the last time_

_what do u want_

_i found the perfect thing to spice up  
our living room_

_omg_

_pls tell me its an armchair_

_we rly need an armchair_

_its better than an armchair_

_doubtful_

_IT IS_

_trust me_

_…ok_

Instead of replying, Mark spends an embarrassing amount of time posing for a photo next to the sign, trying to look as nice as possible before he gives up and just sends the most recent photo. Donghyuck opens it immediately, though it takes a few minutes before a typing bubble pops up.

_you’re shitting me_

_that’s not real_

_THATS THE BEST PART_

_IT IS REAL_

_say the word nd ill take it  
back to the apartment babe_

_or. well_

_say the word nd ill ask the  
employees if i can take it_

_mark ur stupid as hell_

_no offense_

_its in the TRASH_

_you can just take it_

_i don’t want to get arrested_

_O__O_

_getting arrested is sexy doe_

_i think it’d do u good_

_its not sexy to get arrested alone_

_u big baby its still sexy_

_but wtv am omw just idk  
stand ur ground before i get there_

_or smth_

_stake ur claim.._

_thank u will do xx_

Mark’s got a good fifteen, maybe twenty minutes before Donghyuck gets there, and he spends most of it fucking around—that is, until he realizes they have virtually no way of transporting the sign back home. He’s on his bike and Donghyuck’s likely taking public transport and while that’d be a valid mode of getting home any other time, it’s definitely not one _now,_ in the middle of rush hour. That’d only serve to make all the hags annoyed and Mark can already imagine the looks they’d get, especially considering he’d have to lug his bike with him, too.

That only leaves one solution: his hyungs.

His best bet is, admittedly, Yuta, who’s most likely to get there without complaint or question, but he knows for a fact that Yuta’s at work right now. So, he goes for his next best bet: Johnny.

Johnny doesn’t pick up.

Mark leaves a couple of annoyed voicemails, hoping that guilts Johnny into not keeping his phone on silent in the future, even if he’s getting laid or working on another ridiculous art installation. He feels bad about it when he realizes that Johnny doesn’t even have a car and can’t drive to begin with, and so opens his private chat with Johnny and heart reacts the most recent tiktoks he’d received from him (from the previous day), making sure to send him a selfie with _sorryyyy_ scribbled messily across his face.

It’s finally when he decides to call Jaehyun that his lucky stars align, it seems, because he picks up on the third ring, sounding like he’s half-asleep.

“Hyuuuuung,” Mark whines into the phone. He’s doing his best to imitate Donghyuck, considering he does this every single time he wants something from any of their hyungs and somehow, _somehow,_ it always works. “Are you busy?”

There’s shuffling on the other end, a brief muffled conversation, before Jaehyun clears his throat. “ _Eh,_ ” he says. “ _What do you need?_ ”

“I need you to come pick me up? It’s nothing serious, though, just need to, uh, to transport something.”

“ _By car?_ ”

“Yes,” Mark says, even though he can already hear the rejection in Jaehyun’s voice. “Please tell me you can do it?”

“ _See, here’s the thing_ ,” Jaehyun says, and there it is. “ _Taeyong got his tires slashed, so…_ ”

“That’s the shittiest excuse I’ve heard,” Mark scrunches up his nose. “Why the hell did Taeyong get his tires slashed?”

“ _The leading theory right now is Yuta,_ ” Jaehyun says, “ _possibly Donghyuck, but I’d imagine you’d know about it then. Oh—maybe it was Changbin?_ ” Whatever he says next is muffled—evidently a conversation between him and whoever is with him—probably Doyoung, judging by the voice in the background Mark has to strain to hear. “ _Either way, the car’s fucked for the time being. I can call you an Uber if you want?”_

“There you are!”

Mark has to hold back a smile when he looks over his shoulder to see Donghyuck practically skipping down the street, followed by Taeil, who looks more concerned than anything. “Hold that thought,” he tells Jaehyun. “I’ll call you back?”

He barely hears Jaehyun’s reply, hanging up and slipping his phone into his back pocket.

“Hello to you, too,” he tells Donghyuck, who passes him without a second glance on his way to the sign. Taeil gives him a smile in greeting, nodding his head, and Mark reciprocates the gesture quickly, immediately turning his attention back to Donghyuck. “So, what do you think?”

“I think you did something right for once,” Donghyuck says, kicking at the sign with his foot when he’s close enough, almost as if to check if it’s real, just like Mark had done. “Holy shit. And when we get LEDs to light this baby up?”

“Is taking this really the best idea?” Taeil says. “You’re going to have to disinfect and clean it to hell and back. Give it a paint job, even, maybe. Is it worth all this effort?”

“Hyung, you’re my king and all, but are we even looking at the same thing?” Donghyuck says. “This is a Żabka sign. Would you not kill to have it hung square in the middle of your living room?”

“…do you want me to say yes?” Taeil asks, “I feel like you want me to say yes.”

“I think any person with taste would say yes,” Donghyuck says, giving Taeil a rather pointed look, before his eyes skip over Mark and he adds, “even some people without taste would say yes. Case in point: Mark, who realizes the potential genius of stealing this and hanging it in our living room.”

“Fuck off,” Mark says.

“For now I’ll say that you could probably make it work,” Taeil says rather diplomatically in Mark’s opinion, but at least it makes Donghyuck grin. “So what I’m getting is that you definitely want her, yeah?”

“Yes,” Donghyuck beams up at him, “I don’t think our living room would be complete without it.”

“I think you have bigger issues to worry about in your living room,” Taeil says, though he pulls up his sleeves as he strides over to the sign. “Are you sure it’s free for taking?”

“No,” Mark says, just as Donghyuck says, “yes.”

Taeil narrows his eyes, looking between the two of them. “Which is it?”

“Mark was just fucking around,” Donghyuck says with a laugh. As soon as Taeil looks to Mark for confirmation, Donghyuck sends Mark a glare, mouthing something. _Follow my lead_ , maybe. “You know how he is. Wants _so_ badly to go back to his quirky teen days. Well! We can’t have it all.”

“I think we all know that if anyone’s lying, it’s you,” Taeil tells him.

“It was me this time, hyung,” Mark says. Donghyuck’s going to owe him for this one, definitely. “Thought I could… uh, you know. Steal Hyuck’s brand for a top ten funny moment.”

“See how well that worked out?” Donghyuck says, sticking out his tongue at Mark. “This is why you don’t try to imitate stars.”

“I’m tearing apart your Taylor Swift pillow when we get home.”

“You wouldn’t even try, asshole.”

“I’ll do it! As a matter of fact, I’ll bike home right now and—”

“—you’re not faster than a car,” Donghyuck says, incredibly smug. “Good luck getting home earlier than me.”

“You don’t have a car.”

“Taeil hyung does,” Donghyuck says, swinging his arms around Taeil and tugging him close. The mild annoyance on Taeil’s face is quickly overcome by fondness, even as he pushes him away, probably just for show. “You’d drive me home, right, hyung?”

“I’m driving you home anyway,” Taeil says, “remember? You invited me over for dinner so I could stop pestering you.”

“I invited you over for dinner so that you could see we can’t cook and desperately need you to bake us casseroles or something,” Donghyuck corrects. He sighs, pressing his head against Taeil’s shoulder, “you could make us lasagna, actually. Would die for her a little. Or buy us those little tubs of milk.”

“Gostyńskie Mleko zagęszczone słodzone,” Mark provides helpfully.

Donghyuck sighs dreamily. “Can you buy some for us, hyung? Please?”

“You’re both grown men,” Taeil says, going the full mile and shrugging Donghyuck off, giving him a rather pointed look. “This act worked on me when you were still in high school, Hyuck. Now it’s time for you to buy your own mleko w tubce.”

“You’re no fun,” Donghyuck pouts and though Taeil rolls his eyes, Mark’s willing to bet he’ll end up buying the damn milk anyway, even if only just for Donghyuck.

“I already paid for your bubble tea,” Taeil says, “that should be enough for you. Anyway—Mark, help me lift the sign up?”

“Why me?” Mark whines, even though he half-heartedly pushes his hoodie sleeves up and goes to help Taeil anyway. The sign isn’t too heavy but it definitely is a bit dirty and they’re definitely going to have to clean it somehow—something Mark’s not really looking forward to. “Why not Donghyuck?”

“I can’t believe you’d throw me under the bus like that,” Donghyuck sighs.

“We both know Donghyuck wouldn’t help with this, anyway,” Taeil says, leading the way as he walks out of the alley. “Oh, make sure to grab Mark’s bike, though, Hyuck.”

“Can’t I just leave it to get stolen?”

“Kurwa, Donghyuck—”

“—my car’s just a few meters away,” Taeil cuts them off, “will you two be able to act normal until we at least get in it?”

In something just short of a miracle, they manage to make it to Taeil’s car, somehow fitting the Żabka sign, Mark’s bike, _and_ Mark in the trunk, having folded the backseat to make more space. Donghyuck hands Mark a bubble tea from the passenger seat wordlessly, working on convincing Taeil to help them hang the sign up in their living room. When it works, Donghyuck twists in his seat to grin at Mark, all teeth, and Mark can’t help but smile back.

.

“I think we’re interior designers,” Donghyuck says, long after Taeil’s left their apartment, the Żabka sign now hanging proudly above their couch. “We could start our own business and get hired by bitches left and right to redesign their homes.”

“I think the closest we could come to that is starting a youtube home makeover channel,” Mark tells him, looking over the top of his laptop at Donghyuck, who’s standing in the threshold of the living room. “One that would flop.”

“We’d get at least one video on the trending page,” Donghyuck argues.

“That’s a stretch.” Mark shuts his laptop, lightly tossing it onto their coffee table, which is still painfully bare. Donghyuck takes the chance to join Mark on the couch, humming contently when Mark throws an arm around his shoulders, tugging him close. “Not only because the video’d be absolute shit, but because Youtube hates Polish creators.”

Donghyuck sighs. “Your EXO mash-ups never did get more than a hundred views.”

“Obviously not because of the quality.”

“Obviously,” Donghyuck agrees, looking up at Mark. He looks beautiful even now, Mark thinks, in the low light of the afternoon, sun steadily on its way to sink in the horizon. “I think if you’d followed my advice and made a Red Velvet and Maryla Rodowicz mash-up, you really could’ve done something. ATEEZ and Piotr Kupicha AMV. I think you could’ve shaken up the world.”

“I think you’re just putting random shit together at this point,” Mark says. “Neither of those concepts would’ve made sense.”

“They would’ve,” Donghyuck says, rolling his eyes as he rests his head on Mark’s shoulder. Mark’s unable to stop the temptation churning in his stomach and lightly kisses the top of his head, not missing the way Donghyuck’s lips curl in a smile.

“No,” Mark replies, “but I fuck with you for trying.”

“They would’ve been better than most of your youtube videos,” Donghyuck insists, “than all of them—with the exception of the one where you inserted your own verse into Mata Montana and filmed a whole music video to that, for no reason at all.”

“Don’t bring that shit up,” Mark chastises him, though he’s unable to stop his laughter at the memory of it. “And you were the one to suggest filming a music video for it in the first place!”

“I’m pretty sure that was Johnny, when he still thought he’d go into directing.”

“Nice try,” Mark says, “but Johnny told me you made him do that.”

“Made him what? Go into directing? Even if I did make him do that, he switched majors anyway, so—”

“—I meant that you told him to suggest filming a video,” Mark says slowly. He thought that Johnny had told Donghyuck that he’d tattled on him, so to say, but apparently that wasn’t the case. “In the hopes of getting a shoutout from Mata himself so I could jumpstart my rap career or some shit, I don’t remember.”

“Well, I don’t remember that, either,” Donghyuck lies, clearly—though considering how casually he manages to say it, Mark might’ve been fooled if he wasn’t as close to him as he is. “I don’t know what Johnny told you, but evidently he was lying.”

“Right,” Mark says. He presses another kiss to the crown of Donghyuck’s head, before resting his cheek against his hair. Slow silence settles over them and Mark takes the chance to glance out their windows, where the sky is progressively getting darker and darker. “Oh,” he almost gasps as the idea enters his head, “do you want to go watch the sunrise?”

Donghyuck snorts. “Shit, Mark, have you been watching romcoms lately? Or maybe spent too much time in Jaehyun’s company?”

“Shut up,” Mark says, feeling his face redden. “I just thought it’d be nice, you asshole. We could even watch it from our balcony.”

“I don’t think two people can even fit on the balcony.”

“We can try,” Mark says, “and it’s not _that_ small.”

“It’s the smallest balcony I’ve seen in my life,” Donghyuck bites back, if only to bicker with Mark, before he lets out an exaggerated sigh. “But sure,” he says, “as long as you let me sit on the stool out there, then we can go watch the sunset. Though I hope you do know we’ll look like a pair of hags.”

“And what could be better than that?” Mark muses, getting up and hauling Donghyuck to his feet, pulling him to the balcony. “Nothing better than roleplaying a couple of hags every once in a while.”

“I figure playing Club Penguin would be better,” Donghyuck says, though he’s smiling when Mark looks over his shoulder at him. “I’d beat you at sled racing a couple of times, go surfing. Fuck around and adopt a new puffle. I think that’d be a great way to spend the afternoon, actually.”

“I’m better than you are at sled racing.”

“You’re not.”

“I am! I won like, three times when we last played.”

“I let you win,” Donghyuck squeezes past Mark on their balcony to perch himself on the stool; originally, its place had been in the kitchen, but after an unanimous vote (read: Jungwoo moving the stool out so he could sit on the balcony and neither of them being very into bringing it back inside), it’d been moved outside. “You wouldn’t stand a chance against me otherwise.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Mark says. He leans on the railing, glances over the building tops before he turns his head and his gaze settles on Donghyuck, almost as if it belongs there. “You know, it’d be nice if we got another seat out here. Maybe a table?”

“Okay, now you’re really pushing it,” Donghyuck sways in his stool before he settles on leaning against the wall, his eyes falling closed. “Do you know how little space we’ll have out here if we got a table? Just use the window ledge like the rest of us. You’re not any better.”

“Fine,” Mark rolls his eyes, “we don’t need a table. Another seat would still be nice, though?”

“Let’s first get the Louis Tomlinson standee we wanted and then we can start worrying about another balcony seat,” Donghyuck says.

“The Louis Tomlinson standee _you_ wanted,” Mark corrects him.

“Yeah, because you wanted a Liam Payne one,” Donghyuck says, “and that’d only be embarrassing. Can you imagine having guests over and having them see Liam fucking Payne in our living room? We’d lose all our friends so fast.”

“I’m pretty sure Yuta is a Liam Payne stan.”

“I think saying someone’s a Liam Payne stan gives them grounds to sue you for defamation.”

Mark shakes his head. He kicks one of the stool’s legs lightly, making Donghyuck laugh. “Whatever,” he says. “I don’t see how a Louis Tomlinson standee is any better than a Liam Payne one.”

“Louis Tomlinson is the lyricist of our generation,” Donghyuck says without any hesitation, “have you ever listened to _Habit_? And like, most of One Direction’s songs? Until you do, keep my king’s name out of your mouth.”

“Liam Payne has all right music, too.”

“You only think that because you have a pretty bland music taste, save for your thing with Frank Ocean,” Donghyuck tells him. “If the only thing I knew about you was your Spotify account, well. Let’s just say that—heh. Let’s just say—”

“—you’re so annoying,” Mark cuts him off, unable to keep the fondness out of his tone. “Why do I even put up with you?”

“You’re the one who suggested living together in the first place,” Donghyuck says, sounding incredibly smug, “you’ve dug your own grave with this one.” He opens his eyes, meeting Mark’s gaze, and his grin only grows wider. “I thought you wanted to watch the sunset?”

“I do,” Mark says, “with you.”

It’s almost as if something in Donghyuck melts at that moment, his features softening as he slides off the stool and joins Mark in leaning on the railing, knocking into his shoulder. He links their elbows together, making them stand almost uncomfortably close.

“What’s so good about a sunset, anyway,” he says, voice low, eyes shining in the golden light when he turns his head to look at Mark. They’re barely apart, now, and Mark wishes the moment would last an eternity. “I could list just about twenty better sights off the top of my head.”

“Oh really?” Mark asks. “Like what?”

“Like the photo of the two jokers sitting together,” and just like that, the moment pops over their head like a soap bubble, small bits of it raining over them, soaking into their skin to stay there for as long as possible. Surprisingly, Mark finds he doesn’t mind. “We should get that printed and framed, by the way.”

“At this point, I feel like you’re just setting us up,” Mark says, “no way do you actually think that’s nice decor.”

“I think it’s nicer than the EXO poster,” Donghyuck muses, “maybe— _maybe_ even nicer than the Taylor Swift pillow.”

“Not the Żabka sign, though?”

Donghyuck sighs in content, letting his head fall to the side to rest on Mark’s shoulder. “I don’t think anything will ever top the Żabka sign.”

Mark hums in agreement and the conversation ends there, as both of them watch the sky burn red, close to becoming completely dark as the sun dips into the horizon. As some of the stars become clear enough to see, several minutes later, Donghyuck pulls him back inside the apartment and Mark wonders whether they’re going to be awake to watch the sun rise in the morning.

.

They sleep through the sunrise.

Sun streams in through their living room window and balcony door, which they still haven’t gotten blinds for. It lands square on Mark’s face, making him let out an off-tune groan as he shifts on the couch, turning on his side. His nose quickly finds warmth in the figure sleeping next to him, pushing against the soft hair he finds.

He sighs, happily, completely disregarding the faint pounding in his head—the result of staying up to binge _Teen Wolf_ till early in the morning, he’s sure. It’s bound to increase as he wakes up, but for now he’s content with staying on the couch.

Something rustles in front of him.

“Hgnhghngh,” he groans, tightening his arm around Donghyuck’s waist, tugging him closer. He feels his body shake before he hears the laughter and—wait.

This isn’t a dream.

“Mark,” he hears, drawn-out and a bit raspy, and he blinks his eyes open just in time to see Donghyuck sit up and flick him on the forehead. He’s got a smile playing on his lips, sleep-mussed, almost curly hair, an imprint of the couch left in blatant red on his face.

With the light streaming in to form a halo around him, making him shine in the morning light, Donghyuck looks a bit ethereal.

“Oh,” Mark says. He shuts his eyes, wishing briefly to disappear even though they’ve found themselves in this scenario thousands of times before, and opens them again to find Donghyuck still looking at him, growing more and more amused. “Um. Sorry?”

Donghyuck doesn’t respond immediately, shaking his head instead and smiling affectionately at Mark the way he only does in the morning or late in the evening, when fatigue is dimming the corners of his mind.

“You don’t have to apologize,” he says finally, foregoing the second half of the sentence as his cheeks color the way they rarely do and his gaze starts jumping around the room, nerves surely stirring in the bottom of his stomach. Mark bites back a grin; it’s nice to have the reassurance that he affects Donghyuck as much as Donghyuck affects him.

In truth, they’ve only been together for just a few months, since Mark’s birthday in August. In Mark’s head, though, they’ve been together much longer; it’s been an open secret amongst their friend group that Mark’s been well in over his head since at least the beginning of summer, probably even before that.

Definitely even before that, Mark thinks, remembering the time Donghyuck ditched his studniówka to instead spend the day with Mark, going to some shitty arcade place where they ended up getting scammed. In retrospect, it was definitely worth it.

“We really need to invest in some blinds,” Donghyuck says. His fingers are warm on Mark’s skin, tracing up and down his skin idly, and Mark becomes aware of the fact that his arm is still awkwardly draped around Donghyuck.

“It might be a good idea,” Mark says, subtly folding his arm back as he turns onto his back, forcing his eyes closed. He can feel Donghyuck’s gaze on his eyelids, making them burn, but does his best to ignore it. “Patterned or plain?”

“We could be those gays you don’t respect and get bright rainbow ones,” Donghyuck muses. “I think Taeil might lose his mind if he were to see them, though, so maybe it’s better if we don’t.”

“He already lost his mind when he saw the Taylor Swift pillow.”

“You’re literally using the pillow right now, you closeted Swiftie. If you’re going to pretend you still hate it, at least do a better job of it.”

Mark swats blindly at him, missing terribly. “I’m not a Swiftie.”

“The walls in our apartment are quite thin, you know that?” Donghyuck says. “I know that you’ve had Reputation on repeat for the past three days.”

“I plead the fifth.”

“We’re in Poland, idiot,” Donghyuck says, laughter on the edge of his breath, and Mark can’t take it anymore; he opens his eyes, taking the sight of Donghyuck in again, hoping to imprint it in his mind. “What?”

“Nothing.”

Mark reaches forward, wrapping his arms around Donghyuck to pull him close. Donghyuck ends up half-sitting on the couch, half-hovering over Mark, though he’s smiling anyway.

“Nothing?” He asks, sounding obnoxiously cocky. Mark’d be annoyed if it was literally anyone else, probably.

“Nothing,” Mark repeats. Donghyuck raises an eyebrow, expectant, but Mark doesn’t say anything else for a few seconds, his mind too fuzzy around the edges. When he finally speaks, it’s unnecessarily vulnerable: “I’m just so happy we managed to move in together, you know?”

Something in Donghyuck’s expressions softens. “Me too,” he says. “Scoot over, I changed my mind. I’m not getting up just yet.”

“Don’t you have shit to finish today?”

“It can wait,” Donghyuck says, shrugging Mark’s arms off of him and pushing him against the wall. “You gotta lie down on your side so I can fit, Mark. Come on, think a little, here.”

Mark rolls his eyes though he does as instructed. The harsh back of the couch digs into his own and he wishes they hadn’t taken the cushions off the night before—or that at least they replaced them with something comfortable, like blankets or some spare pillows, maybe. “This good enough for you, king?”

“Yes,” Donghyuck beams at him, lying down properly. As Mark should’ve expected, he lies down on his back, elbow digging into Mark’s stomach, eyes tracing the ceiling. Mark follows his gaze before straying off to the side, almost jumping at the sight of the Żabka sign.

“Holy shit,” he says. Donghyuck gives him a questioning glance, but Mark’s too busy narrowing his eyes at the sign hung almost above their heads. “Isn’t the fucking frog creepy?”

“You did not just say that about the Żabka frog. I know you did not just say that about the Żabka frog.”

“Isn’t it, though?” Mark insists. “Look at it. Like, really look at it.”

Donghyuck sighs. He turns his head, taking in the sign, brows slowly knotting together as he does so. “God,” he says, after a few long moments, “as much as I hate to say it, you might be onto something.”

“Should we get rid of it?”

“We literally just got it and it’s not that creepy, you big baby,” Donghyuck says, “and it’s going to look so much better when we get the LEDs for it.”

“We’re getting LEDs for it?”

“Yes? Did you not hear me say that like ten times yesterday?”

Mark hums, amused. “Must’ve missed it somehow,” and Donghyuck retaliates by sending him a pointed look, one he’s not even able to keep, happiness shining through his eyes right into Mark’s. “I might need to be told another time. Maybe with some positive reinforcement to really remember it this time.”

“You’re not one of Pavlov’s dogs, Mark.”

“Well, yeah,” Mark says, “Pavlov didn’t introduce the concept of positive reinforcement. I think it was… Skinner? And his rats? Or something.”

“You’re not one of Skinner’s rats, then,” Donghyuck amends, twisting on the couch to properly face Mark. “But, fine, whatever. We’re getting LEDs for the Żabka sign.”

“And my positive reinforcement?”

“Do you want to be told you’re a good boy that badly? Because that’s really not my thing—”

“—you know that’s not what I meant,” Mark says, resting his arm on the curve of Donghyuck’s waist. “Kiss me, Hyuck, or I’m gonna be hit with short term memory loss again.”

“Maybe later,” Donghyuck says and Mark’d feel disappointment wash over him in thick waves if not for the way the promise is written neatly across Donghyuck’s face, “after we get up and shit.”

“I think we should get up now, then,” Mark half-heartedly goes to sit up only to have Donghyuck push him back onto the couch, his laughter reaching the ceiling.

.

“ _I found the perfect arm chair for the balcony_ ,” Donghyuck says over the phone as soon as Mark answers, completely disregarding the fact that Mark just woke up from his nap. “ _It’s so sexy, you’ll faint when you’ll see it._ ”

“ _It’s not that sexy_ ,” Mark hears and it takes him a moment to register the voice as Johnny’s, and another to realize that means Donghyuck has him on speaker. “ _It’s—okay, fine, shit. It has its charm, I guess._ ”

“ _It has more than its charm,_ ” Donghyuck insists. “ _It sits in a league of its own._ ”

“What does it look like,” Mark manages to say, before he realizes how husky his voice sounds, even to his own ears. He clears his throat. “Are either of you going to grace me with a picture?”

“ _I’ll send you the link to the OLX listing—_ ”

“— _you’re just gonna have to wait till we bring it home,_ ” Donghyuck says, “ _we’re already on our wayto go check it out and take it, though. It’s so sexy, I promise. Close your eyes and imagine the best armchair—it’s ten times better than that. It’s also called the Joker arm chair, if that makes your vision any clearer.”_

Mark sits up, holding his phone against his chest as he yawns. “No, wait, hold on,” he says, already imagining the worst of the worst in his head. “I should be there.”

“ _Don’t worry, I got Johnny with me_ ,” Donghyuck says, as if it’s Johnny who lives with him and not Mark. “ _Together, we’re going to be an unstoppable negotiating team._ ”

“ _That’s why you asked me to join you?_ ”

“That’s not what I mean,” Mark replies before Donghyuck and Johnny have a chance to descent into bickering and forget he’s on the phone. He gets up, trudging over to his dresser in hopes of finding something clean to wear. “I should be there, since, you know. It’s my apartment, too. Plus you’ll probably need help bringing it back home, no?”

“ _We were just planning on guilting Yuta into coming to pick us up, so not really.”_

_“We were?”_

_“Yes? How else did you think we’d get it to the apartment?_ ”

Johnny’s silent for a moment before he says, _“I just thought we’d take the tram home, honestly.”_

 _“Damn,_ ” Donghyuck scoffs and Mark can just imagine how he rolls his eyes. _“Can you believe this is a grown man?”_

_“Couldn’t you have started with pestering Yuta to do this in the first place instead of me, then? Since he has not only a license but an actual car?”_

_“I told you, we’re just going to guilt him into coming to pick us up and help.”_

_“You wouldn’t have to guilt him if you asked him to come in the first place—”_

The rest of whatever Johnny says cuts off as Mark sets his phone aside, pulling on a hoodie and slipping into a clean pair of pants. He’s bound to regret dressing so warmly later, considering the sunny weather, but that’s the last thought on his mind when he picks up his phone and says, “where are you right now?”

“ _Huh?_ ”

“Where are you?”

“ _Mark, I told you, we got this,”_ Donghyuck says, “ _don’t you trust me?_ ”

“I do,” Mark says, because for all that it’s worth, he does. He’d trust Donghyuck with his life—actively does—but their living room is at stake here. “I’ve seen your choices when we were looking for a couch, though, so. Where are you?”

Donghyuck sighs, loudly. He must put his phone right up to his mouth because the line cracks uncomfortably, but it’s not like Mark’s not used to his antics. “ _Meet us at Rotunda. Get here fast enough and maybe there’ll be some fries left for you_.”

“I thought you were on your way to pick up the arm chair?”

“ _We are_ ,” Donghyuck says, “ _just made a small pitstop. Johnny told the seller we’d be there at three, anyway, so we still have like. Almost an hour to go before we actually have to get going._ ”

“God, you’re insufferable,” Mark says, “couldn’t you have led with that?”

 _“No,”_ Donghyuck says and Mark just _knows_ he’s grinning smugly, convinced he’s the funniest person on this planet. _“We’re waiting for you, king. Don’t make us regret it._ ”

Mark huffs, mock annoyed. “I’ll try my best,” he says, and Donghyuck hangs up without another word.

.

“Where’d you even get this arm chair? Out of a dumpster?”

“No,” Mark says, just as Donghyuck’s excited, “yes!” fills the car.

Doyoung raises an eyebrow.

“It was not in a dumpster,” Mark rushes to explain. Doyoung already thinks they’re out of their mind—has sworn to never visit their apartment again after doing so once—and Mark’d like to have at least a bit of dignity in his hyung’s eyes. “Yuta, tell him. It wasn’t in a dumpster, was it?”

Yuta drums his fingers on the steering wheel, humming noncommittally in response.

“It was kind of in a dumpster,” he says.

“It was not!”

“It was meant for a dumpster,” Donghyuck specifies happily. “We either picked it up for, uh, however much Johnny paid for it, or the dude would’ve gotten rid of it. Oh, maybe he would’ve burned it. Does that answer your question, hyung?”

“A bit,” Doyoung admits. “Were you out of your mind? Why would you buy that shit?”

“Johnny was the one to buy it,” Yuta says, winking at Mark in the rearview mirror as if that’s such a great defense. It’s not, clearly, and Mark’s halfway committed to pressing charges—it was Yuta’s idea, after all, to pick up Doyoung and have him join their impromptu dinner party for the night, in celebration of their new, sexy piece of furniture. “The two of them didn’t spend a cent on that piece of shit. No offense, Hyuck.”

“I think you’ll learn to appreciate its genius with time,” Donghyuck says, casting Mark a knowing glance as if he expects him to agree. And Mark—well. He nods at Donghyuck, sure, but that’s only because Donghyuck’s got his hand on Mark’s knee and it’s making him a little lightheaded, somehow, even with Johnny’s sleeping figure leaning heavily on his other side. “You’ll probably want to commission me to make one of those bad boys for you in the future and, you know what, I wouldn’t be opposed. That offer also applies to you, Doyoung. If you ever find yourself wanting a hot replica, you know who to contact.”

“I can assure you that won’t happen,” Doyoung says.

“I might change my mind,” Yuta says, though, and that’s enough of a victory for Donghyuck, it seems, what with the way he smiles as if the world’s just been handed to him on a silver platter. “I’ll see how good you’re able to make it look in your living room and then I’ll give you my official verdict.”

“Deal,” Donghyuck says, “how much would you be willing to pay? For a custom? Keep in mind the tremendous amount of work I’d have to put in, to make it look even half as good as the original.”

The original in question doesn’t even look that good right now, Mark doesn’t say—he definitely thinks it, though, risking a glance over his shoulder into the trunk. The arm chair looks a lot more grey in the back of the car than it does outside, though even in the sunlight it’s still rather murky. It’s got more _Haha_ s scrawled over it than Mark can count—that’s the reason behind its name on the listing, Johnny had enlightened him—and it’s really rather unsightly.

It’s quite likely the worst arm chair Mark has ever seen in his life.

Donghyuck seems to absolutely adore it, though; he’d been buzzing with excitement as soon as they stepped off the bus, knees shaking when they finally got to see the chair for the first time, and Mark didn’t have the heart to set his foot down and tell him they’re not getting it.

“Like, twenty złoty. Maybe.”

“I can’t buy shit with twenty złoty,” Donghyuck argues. His hand slips off Mark’s knee to elbow him, instead, sending him a look. “Tell him, Mark. It’d be _art_. I’m an _artist._ You gotta fund artists, hyung.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Yuta tells him. “I’m an artist and you’ve never once funded me.”

“Hate to defend him but in all fairness, Donghyuck is like, five years younger,” Doyoung says. “Don’t think it’s his duty to fund you.”

“Tell him, hyung!”

“Don’t get too brave, though, Hyuck, because if you tried to create a duplicate of that— _thing_ to sell it to Yuta, it wouldn’t be art,” Doyoung continues—causing Donghyuck’s elated expression to shift immediately into a pout, eyebrows digging into his skin as he furrows them at Doyoung, practically demanding an explanation with his gaze. “It’d be trash, that’s what it’d be.”

“You just don’t understand modern art,” Donghyuck says.

“Don’t you hate modern art?”

“There’s no proof of that.”

“I’m sure I could pull up your old tweets about it.”

“You’re just trying to frame me at this point! I’m going to sue you for defamation, hyung, and you’ll regret spreading these vile lies about me.”

Mark tunes out whatever Doyoung bites back in response, letting his head fall onto Donghyuck’s shoulders, letting his eyes fall closed as Donghyuck and Doyoung continue arguing with the occasional quip from Yuta. Now, even as he’s sandwiched between Johnny and Donghyuck, with most of the former’s body mass pressing on his shoulder, Mark can safely say he’s never felt more at home.

.

“This is defacing your home,” Jaehyun tells them about the chair, less than a week later. He drops by to help Donghyuck with some art project—which means the two of them are bound to just end up hanging out in the living room and not actually getting anything done, and that’s exactly how Mark finds them when he gets home after a particularly long day of classes. “Feel like it might be a crime to even have this here.”

“And? Crime is sexy.”

“Crime is sexy,” Jaehyun agrees, “phrased it wrong. Feel like it’s a sin to have this here, all out on display as if you’re proud of it.”

“A sin,” Donghyuck scoffs, “please. As if that’s anything. Mark’s going to pray it away at the confessional or whatever and it won’t be a problem, right, Mark?”

Mark gives him a pointed look as he toes off his shoes, kicking them blindly in the direction of the doorway. “You know that’s not how it works.”

“Watch out, Hyuck,” Jaehyun says, voice dry, “you’re going to make the christian pop a vein or some shit. Say a różaniec. A paciorek? Whatever it’s called.”

“He’s going to start praying for me,” Donghyuck sighs, pressing a hand to his heart and only lasting a second before dissolving into giggles with Jaehyun.

“Haha, very funny, guys,” Mark says and he’d be more offended, maybe, if not for the fact that he’d stopped being an actual hardcore christian years ago. “If anything, I’d stop praying for you.”

That only makes them laugh harder and Mark’s rather bad attempt at a poker face falls away entirely as he grins at them, shaking his head fondly, slipping back into the hallway to hang up his coat. He’d only gotten home a few minutes ago, most of his day taken up by Yuta, who’d dragged him along the city, taking what must’ve been hundreds of blurry photos.

When he pops his head back into the living room, Donghyuck’s head is on Jaehyun’s lap, with his legs thrown over the couch’s armrest, laptop propped on his thighs as he scrolls idly through someone’s instagram page. Mark recognizes it to be one of Donghyuck’s current classmates, one he particularly despises—and, judging by the way Jaehyun is smiling, clearly endeared, Donghyuck is in the middle of one of his drawn-out rants on them.

Mark must spend too long just staring at them, letting the warmth he feels spread in his chest, because Donghyuck quiets down and Mark realizes, belatedly, that they’re both looking right back at him, a mixture of amused and confused.

“You good there, king?” Donghyuck asks.

“I thought you two were supposed to be working,” Mark blurts out, taking the few steps towards them to lean against the joker chair, hand smoothing its side offhandedly. “Why aren’t you?”

Jaehyun rests his arm over the back of the couch, flicking Donghyuck’s forehead as he does so. “Who says we didn’t finish it already?”

“Did you?”

Jaehyun’s grin only widens. “No.”

“Do you need materials or something?” Mark asks, “I don’t have shit to do today, I can go bike down to the art store and buy you more paint or whatever if you need it.”

“I’m not even using paint for it,” Donghyuck scoffs, focusing once more on his laptop screen instead of Mark. He’d left the instagram profile, moving onto what looks to be the tumblr gossip blog he’d gotten accustomed to checking every other day. “But thanks for the offer, I guess. A for effort. You pass or whatever.”

“Do you need anything… else, then?”

“We’re finished for today,” Jaehyun says, evidently taking pity on Mark and deciding to fill him in. “We’ve done enough work today and he has time to finish, anyway, don’t you? When’s it due, again?”

“I told you this like five times, hyung. Old age making your memory wither away?”

“I’ll push you off this couch, don’t think I won’t.”

Donghyuck rolls his eyes, though he’s unable to hide the smile from his tone when he says, “sometime next week, I think? Thursday, maybe Wednesday. Either way I’ve got time to finish it.”

“What is it, anyway?” Mark asks; he remembers Donghyuck mentioning some project—a sculpture, something about wire and plaster bandages—and then it clicks, why exactly Jaehyun’s the one to help him. That’s just about his area of expertise, while Johnny works with more… unusual supplies, so to speak, Yuta dabbles in abstract painting, and the rest of their art-inclined hyungs tend towards digital. “Can I see it?”

“It’s just wire now,” Donghyuck sighs. “I’m afraid there’s not much to see.”

“Don’t undersell yourself,” Jaehyun chastises him, flicking his forehead once more. It has the clear opposite effect of the desired one, considering Donghyuck just laughs. Jaehyun rolls his eyes and turns to Mark, looking immensely proud as he says, “he’s finished the wire base today and it looks really good, actually. I think we’ve got a genius in our midst.”

“It took you this long to figure it out?” Donghyuck teases, though he’s preening at the genuine praise anyway, practically glowing amongst the shadows of their living room. Any more of that, Mark thinks, and he’ll call out the sun from beyond the rain clouds to shine on him. “Damn, hyung. Really expected more from you.”

“Where is it now?”

“Stashed back in my bedroom,” and, as soon as Mark pushes himself away from the joker arm chair, Donghyuck adds, “do _not_ go looking for it, Mark.”

Mark pouts. “Why not?”

“It really is just wire now,” Donghyuck says. “There’s not much to see.”

“All the more reason to let me see it, no?”

“But then the finished piece is not gonna have a full impact,” Donghyuck sighs loudly. “Tell him, hyung. It’s just gonna hit different if you see the final piece instead of the shitty in-progress wire skeleton.”

“Well, I mean,” Jaehyun starts, but Donghyuck stops him, motioning for him to lean down. He whispers something in Jaehyun’s ear that Mark’s not able to make out, no matter how hard he strains, and when Jaehyun sits up again and faces Mark, he just nods, a secretive smile pulling at his lips. “Yeah, what Hyuck said. It’s better if you don’t see the process.”

Mark rolls his eyes, not believing a word of it. He wonders what kind of blackmail Donghyuck has on Jaehyun to make him comply—wonders if he’d be willing to share, though that’s probably a no-go.

“Fine,” he sighs, taking the chance to sit down in the arm chair, folding his legs cleanly under him, “I guess I’ll just join you guys in doing… nothing.”

“We’re about to watch _High School Musical,_ ” Donghyuck tells him happily; Mark bites back a groan. He should’ve expected nothing less. “God. No, Mark, we’re not gonna watch _Fight Club_ or _Pulp Fiction_ or whatever other incel movie you’d like. _High School Musical_ is good, you freak.”

“It really is high time you accept it as the timeless classic it is,” Jaehyun says.

“I’m leaving the moment the two of you start singing.”

“You always say that,” Donghyuck says, sitting up as he starts to set up the movie on his laptop. “You said that when we watched _Hairspray_ last week and the night ended with you practically worshipping Nikki Blonsky, so.”

Jaehyun’s brows furrow together. “Not Zac Efron?”

“Surprisingly, no,” Donghyuck says, “MC Zac Efron did not hit very hard, apparently. Maybe basketball player Zac Efron will hit the mark.”

“It doesn’t matter who the actor is,” Mark cuts in, before the two of them can continue on with that, which he knows from experience will turn into critiquing and/or praising the entirety of the _High School Musical_ cast, one by one. God, he hates gay people sometimes. “It’s the—the entirety of it, that’s unappealing. Not Zac Efron.”

“What’s unappealing about a romanticized high school movie with a collection of musical numbers?” Jaehyun asks, drumming his fingers on the back of the couch. “I can’t think of a single thing.”

“Maybe the fact that I graduated high school a year ago?”

“A year is nothing,” Jaehyun says, as if he’s proud to be old. “If you wanna watch with us, though, you gotta promise not to complain.”

“Or be too critical.”

“Or clown the plot line too much.”

“Or talk over the musical numbers,” Donghyuck says, sliding his laptop over onto the coffee table. “I think you’re gonna have to join us on the couch for this one, Mark, if you want to see the actual movie.”

“You two should really get a TV screen,” Jaehyun says, even as he scoots over to let Mark fall into his side. If he feels uncomfortable with the way both Mark and Donghyuck are pressing into him, he doesn’t let it show, his arms coming around their shoulders naturally. “Then you can steal an HDMI cable from Johnny and this shit goes so much smoother.”

“I’m almost certain you and Taeyong don’t have a TV screen at yours,” Mark points out.

“That’s why we mostly crash Johnny’s for movie nights these days,” Jaehyun says, “keep up.”

“How was I to know?”

“Be quiet,” Donghyuck snaps, in that mock irritated way of his, cutting off whatever Jaehyun was going to retort. Mark doesn’t know whether to be grateful or annoyed; he settles on content, instead, letting his head rest on Jaehyun’s shoulder as the opening credits of _High School Musical_ play. “The movie’s starting.”

.

They end up watching the whole High School Musical trilogy, followed up by several Twilight movies out of order. Mark doesn’t remember falling asleep but when he blinks his eyes open, the only things that he registers is that it’s far too bright and that Donghyuck’s the only one sleeping next to him on the couch, covered with their flimsy blanket.

It takes him several minutes to figure out that Jaehyun left earlier, though not before making pancakes for the two of them; when Mark asks why he didn’t simply wake them up so they could eat together before he left, Jaehyun says _didn’t want to lol,_ attaching a photo of Mark and Donghyuck sleeping on the couch in his text message and adding, _u looked rly cute x__x._

Mark calls him a sap and saves the photo.

He ends up getting up when Donghyuck is still asleep, gently shifting him off of Mark’s shoulder. He’s in the middle of heating up Jaehyun’s pancakes, trying and only half-succeeding not to burn them, when Donghyuck walks into the kitchen, sleep-mussed hair paired with yawns and soft edges.

If possible, Mark falls a little bit more in love.

“Morning, gorgeous,” Mark tells him, tone teasing. Donghyuck’s a bit too tired to pick up on the joke, it seems, because instead of responding in the way he normally would—by firing his own “morning, gorgeous” right back at Mark—he hums and yawns, rubbing at his eyes sleepily. “Are you really that tired?”

“No,” Donghyuck lies. Mark rolls his eyes, the smell of something burning quickly bringing his attention back to the pancakes. “Where’s Jaehyun?”

“God, you’d rather he be here instead of me, wouldn’t you?”

Donghyuck’s hands wrap around Mark’s midriff, his chin coming up to rest on Mark’s shoulder. “You’re such a drama queen sometimes,” he says, breath hot on the crook of Mark’s neck. “I was just asking.”

“He left, earlier,” Mark says, hands almost shaking as he uses the spatula to push the pancakes around in the pan, “when I was still asleep, too. I think Doyoung might’ve swung by to pick him up, since he mentioned some plans with him the other day, but your guess is as good as mine.”

“Mhm,” Donghyuck hums, sending vibrations deep into Mark’s skin. It’s a bit embarrassing, maybe, how much the physical contact affects him. “We really gotta stop making a habit of falling asleep on our couch.”

“I think it’s very quirky teen of us. No need to stop a good thing.”

“You sound so old,” Donghyuck tells him, sleep still heavy in his words as he presses his lips to where Mark’s skin is exposed. “And you’re not a teen anymore, do I need to remind you?”

That’s a low blow; Mark’s twentieth birthday came and passed a few months ago, seemingly taking everyone by surprise. Most days, he forgot he was already in his twenties, dead-convinced he was still nineteen, and Donghyuck loved to burst his bubble. No surprise there.

“I’m gonna stop making you breakfast if you keep at this.”

Donghyuck perks up at that, lifting his head off Mark’s shoulder as he peers into the pan, staring down the half-burned pancakes. “Um,” he says, “maybe that’s a good idea, actually.”

Scowling, Mark tries to elbow him; he manages to hit him exactly zero times.

“You’re an asshole, Hyuck,” he tells him. “I’m trying my best, you know that.”

“I doubt you even made those pancakes,” Donghyuck says and, well, Mark can’t exactly protest, can he? “Did you?”

“No comment,” Mark says. He itches the spatula under the pancake, flipping it—or trying to, at least, because it takes him three tries before he’s successful. Donghyuck stifles his giggles rather poorly. “What matters is I’m heating them up for you right now and I’ll stop, if you keep at this.”

“Keep at what?” Donghyuck asks innocently. “I’m not doing anything.”

“As always,” Mark tells him and Donghyuck huffs, almost annoyed, before he lets go off Mark to slink into his seat by the kitchen table. Mark tries not to let disappointment simmer in his stomach at the sudden lack of physical contact.

He somehow manages to heat up the pancakes without burning them too much and lets Donghyuck steal onto his plate all the ones that are just right, leaving the ones that have charred a bit for Mark. They eat in amicable silence, interrupted occasionally by Donghyuck humming along to a song Mark can’t recognize by name, but one he recognizes to be an EXO classic.

It’s reminiscent of their late mornings after a bit of drinking the night before or after a long week of classes, where they don’t have anything to do for the rest of the day and can take as long as they want to just sit together in the morning. Typically, Donghyuck fills the silence with idle chatter about a stupid teacher or an annoying hag on the bus or his family’s latest misadventures or whatever Taeil’s told him lately—or a new project he’s been assigned.

Which reminds Mark: “will you really not show me your sculpture until you’re done with it?”

It takes a few minutes for Donghyuck to understand what he’s talking about.

“You’re so nosy sometimes,” he tells him, finally, in lieu of a real answer, stuffing a full pancake soaked in syrup into his mouth, taking the time to chew it slowly. Mark narrows his eyes at him, waiting until Donghyuck swallows it down with his glass of milk. “We’ve already gone over this.”

“Jaehyun got to see it,” Mark whines. “Why can’t I?”

“He’s helping me make it,” Donghyuck says, stretching his legs under the kitchen table to kick at Mark’s shin. “Believe me, if he wasn’t, I wouldn’t let him see it, too.”

Mark tries not to sulk too much at that. He knows its irrational, he _does,_ but lately Donghyuck’s made a point of telling Mark about his work, asking him for advice, letting him watch Donghyuck draw or paint or sculpt, whichever he’s doing at the moment, and him not doing that now stings a little, maybe. He’s not obligated to share every little detail with Mark, obviously, and Mark’s not going to push him to do so, it’s just—something to think about, maybe.

Not to mention the fact that despite how hard he might deny it and claim Donghyuck’s just trying to make him look bad, Mark is just plain nosy and curious.

“Can you tell me what the topic is?” Mark asks, trying not to wince at how interrogatory that sounds. Donghyuck seems to pick up on it, sending him an amused look. “I’m just. Wondering.”

“And if I don’t tell you, you’ll go behind my back and grill Jaehyun about it, I presume?”

“You know I wouldn’t,” Mark says, because it’s true. Partly because Jaehyun wouldn’t tell him anything anyway, but mostly because it’s a shitty thing to do. “You don’t have to, if you don’t want to, though. I’ll just practice my patience for once and shit.”

“As if,” Donghyuck rolls his eyes, lips stretching in a smile. “It’s kind of stupid, really. The keyword for the assignment was habitat, of all things, and God, it really took me a while to come up with something good.” Mark blinks, opens his mouth, and—“I’m still not telling you what it is, Mark. Don’t even try.”

“I wasn’t going to!” Mark counters and Donghyuck kicks at his shins again, maybe in a half-assed apology. Probably just to annoy Mark, though. “I just wanted to say that’s a very, uh, broad topic? Very general and shit.”

“Thank you for being insightful as always,” Donghyuck teases, “but, yeah, no, it does kind of tell you nothing, doesn’t it? Though I guess that’s to let all the art students off their leash a little and shit.”

Mark hums in agreement. “I’d imagine so, yeah.”

His own art career ended back in middle school, along with all the religion-concentrated art classes he used to have—unless his brief stint as a soundcloud rapper is to be taken into account, but he’s doing his best to forget that, currently. His options of what he can do in his STEM-based classes are rather narrowed down, at least in comparison to the freedom Donghyuck seems to have, but he thinks he prefers it like that; from what Donghyuck’s told him, it seems a bit overwhelming at times.

Liberating at others, though, he thinks, as Donghyuck says, “I’m pretty excited about how it’s going to turn out. My idea, I mean. It deviates enough from the theme to be a little quirky, not like the other girls, but not far enough to give me a failing grade.”

“That’s really nice,” Mark says and Donghyuck beams at him with one of his more genuine smiles, not played up and exaggerated. “I’m looking forward to finding out what it is.”

“You won’t have to wait too long,” Donghyuck says. He’s quiet for a moment, eyes stagnant on Mark, before he adds, almost shyly, “I think you’re going to like it.”

Mark can barely stop himself from leaning over the kitchen table to kiss Donghyuck. He settles on reaching for Donghyuck’s hand, squeezing it almost feverishly in his happiness, and Donghyuck rolls his eyes, mock annoyed, but Mark spots the blush building up slowly on his cheeks and just barely manages to keep all the love he feels for Donghyuck from spilling out his mouth.

.

So: Donghyuck’s a struggling artist.

This is his explanation for most things; “I’m a struggling artist,” he pouts, when begging Mark to pay for his coffee, his bubble tea, his order of fries. It’s become something of an inside joke at this point, considering how often he says it. Mark’d probably be more concerned about the amount of money Donghyuck’s making him spend if not for the fact that he’s obsessed with him.

Not to mention it’s amusing—and a little informative—to watch Donghyuck pull this trick on any of their hyungs.

“Hyung,” Donghyuck starts, as the three of them slip out of Yuta's car and start heading towards the small art shop. The only reason Mark’s tagging along is because they’re going to Ikea right after this in search of a rug for their living room, finally succumbing to Jungwoo’s insistence that they need one. “I imagine Jaehyun’s told you about my latest project for school?”

Yuta looks over his shoulder, eying Donghyuck suspiciously. “Surprisingly enough, Jae doesn’t keep tabs on you for me.”

“Good,” Donghyuck says; Yuta just eyes him some more. “So you don’t know anything?”

“I mean, you mentioned shit about it on the ride here,” Yuta says, gaze shifting on Mark as if to ask him for assistance, and Mark just shrugs, giving him an amused smile. “The wire sculpture and shit, the bandage plaster. That’s why we're here, isn’t it?”

“That is why we’re here, yeah, and I was just wondering if—”

“—I’m not paying for your art supplies, Donghyuck,” Yuta reaches for the door, pushing it open, letting Mark and Donghyuck enter before him, “you have your own money, don’t you? Use that.”

“I’m almost broke,” Donghyuck whines, though thankfully has half a mind to lower his volume as to not disrupt the employees and two other customers in the store. “Don’t you want to fund my art project? It’s a noble cause, really. I’d dedicate it to you.”

“I already have good intel that it’s already dedicated to someone else, namely—”

“—so Jaehyun did tell you!” Donghyuck cuts Yuta off, to Mark’s disappointment; the mischievous smile pulling on Yuta’s lips piqued his curiosity, rather unfortunately. “Feel free to tell _him_ that I’m never trusting him with anything personal ever again.”

“Tell him that yourself,” Yuta says, “he wasn’t the one to tell me about it, though.”

“Who else could it have been?”

Yuta sends Mark an amused look.

“You were the one to tell me,” Yuta says, following Donghyuck around the store as he looks for the supplies he needs. Mark trails after them, if only to keep eavesdropping. “Got no one to blame but yourself, king. Can still pull up the texts from when you were blowing up my mentions about it, in the middle of the night—”

“—okay, okay, god,” Donghyuck glares at Yuta, though Mark doesn’t miss how flushed he’s become. “My bad.”

“Not gonna give me a proper apology?”

“You really think you deserve one?”

“Well, yeah, if you still want me to pay for your shit,” and he’s kind of got a point there, Mark’s willing to agree. Donghyuck pushes out the most insincere sounding apology Mark’s ever heard in his life and Yuta just laughs, loudly, filling up the small store. It’s a wonder they haven’t gotten kicked out just yet. “That’s the best you can do?”

“Sorry,” Donghyuck says again, slightly more bitter. Yuta just laughs some more.

“You’re a lost cause,” he tells Donghyuck, reaching to push up his hat. Donghyuck just barely manages to grab it before it falls off his head, giving Yuta a half-hearted scowl in response.

“Hyuck,” Mark says before Yuta has a chance to continue, making the two of them turn over their shoulders to look at him. His attention’s been caught by a display of spray paint, mind replaying what Taeyong said, when he first came to their apartment. “Maybe we should vandalize our walls, actually.”

“We’ve already talked about this,” Donghyuck sighs, reaching for Yuta, leaning on him heavily as soon as he steps close enough for him to do that, a temporary truce formed between them. “Remember?”

“Well, yeah, but,” Mark stammers, sending Donghyuck a rather helpless look. “Maybe it’s worth looking into it again?”

Donghyuck narrows his eyes. “Any reason for the sudden change of mind? Or is it just your first time seeing spray paint irl?”

“Just think it’d be nice,” Mark lies.

The actual reason behind him wanting to do this is Taeyong—or, more specifically, his and Taeyong’s hang-out last week. Taeyong’d picked him up from his classes and they’d made a pitstop at his and Jaehyun’s apartment to pick up his skateboard; Mark’s been secretly learning how to skate, if only so he could impress Donghyuck.

(It hasn’t been going well, thus far.)

Nonetheless, his eyes had been caught by the drawings on Taeyong’s walls, ones that he’d never paid much attention to before. Taeyong’d noticed, because of course he had, and rattled off some story about certain drawings, ones that Jaehyun helped him with, ones that Johnny helped him with. And—maybe it’s his overactive imagination, but Mark couldn’t stop thinking about it, couldn’t stop imagining him and Donghyuck doing the same. He could already imagine how giggly and excited Donghyuck’d get, how almost high off the fumes he’d be, how nice spending an evening just fucking up their walls together would be.

Donghyuck just stares at him for a moment, quiet, likely imagining the same scenario. “Okay,” he says, finally, “it would kinda bang, actually. And we could use the leftover for a graffiti escapade or some shit.”

Mark can’t hold back the full force of his grin.

“Okay,” he replies, drinking in Donghyuck’s smile before turning back to the paint, eyes sweeping over the color selection. “What colors do we want to get?”

“I don’t know,” Donghyuck says. He readjusts his grip on Yuta’s arm so he can look at the colors better, throwing an arm around his shoulders. “I’m not paying, though.”

“No?”

“Fuck no,” Donghyuck says, “your idea, your cash.”

Mark bites his lip, chewing on it as he thinks; there’s definitely not enough money in his bank account to splurge on spray paint and afford groceries next week. He’s not willing to give up on the vision of him and Donghyuck spray painting their walls, though, so he turns to Yuta and hopes this’ll do the trick:

“Hyung?”

It has more or less the desired effect. Yuta looks up from where he was looking through paintbrushes, effectively having tuned out from Mark and Donghyuck’s conversation minutes prior, probably. “Hm?”

“Would you mind donating to the cause?”

.

“So your decoration plan is plagiarizing Taeyong, basically,” Yuta says as they’re walking through Ikea, taking too much time to stop in each room and admiring the rather monotonous and dead decor. Yuta hadn’t been able to say no to Mark, paying for both Donghyuck’s supplies and the numerous cans of spray paint, under the condition that he’d be able to chime in with at least a small drawing on their walls. “Couldn’t come up with anything more original?”

“We’re not plagiarizing,” Mark corrects, rather gently, more occupied with watching as Donghyuck zooms ahead, stopping occasionally to peer at small decorations with interest shining in his eyes. “We’re just… drawing inspiration from it, yeah.”

“In the art world, I hear they call that plagiarizing.”

“You’re so annoying,” Mark says, shoving Yuta. It doesn’t do much then make him laugh, rather unfortunately, but that’s just how it is. “We have explicit permission to do it from him, though. So I’d gather it really is fine and not plagiarizing.”

“Mhm,” Yuta hums. “See, if you really wanted to go crazy, you could get yourself a stop sign, I think it was. A yield sign, maybe? Maybe a priority road sign. Fuck if I know,” and that’s alarming, maybe, considering Yuta’s an actual driver with a license. “Doyoung has one in his living room and it kinda—I mean, you know. It’s a banger, definitely.”

Mark narrows his eyes. “Doyoung most definitely does not have a traffic sign in his living room.”

“They do,” Yuta says, “I swear! Stop looking at me like that. Fucking call up Doyoung and ask him if I’m lying if you don’t believe me.”

“I don’t believe you,” Mark says. Not only does Yuta have a rather nasty habit of pranking Mark every chance he gets, but Doyoung’s really not the type to decorate with traffic signs. “Give me one good reason to trust you.”

“I’m literally your friend?”

Mark stammers, struggling to come up with a response that doesn’t make him seem like an asshole while at the same time doesn’t end up with Yuta proclaiming that it was a joke and Mark was just gullible enough to believe it. It wouldn’t be the first time, definitely.

Luckily, Donghyuck’s there to save him.

“You two are so fucking slow,” he says, latching himself onto Mark’s arm, pulling him close as they fall into step together. “At this rate, we’re never going to get to the rugs. Not before closing, at least.”

“You love it,” Mark tells him.

“I do,” Donghyuck sighs, fingers brushing on the kitchen counters designed to look like an imitation of marble as they walk past them. “We should camp out here one night and do a twenty-four hour challenge thing. Think it’d be very fun and definitely not illegal.”

“Haha, yeah. It’d be a moment, I think.”

“So you go along with that and not with what I say,” Yuta says, tone verging on accusatory but soft enough for Mark to figure out he’s not actually annoyed. “I can’t believe the double standard you have going on here.”

“It’s not a double standard! I have my reasons to doubt what you’re saying.”

“And what’re you saying this time, hyung?” Donghyuck asks, leaning forward to meet Yuta’s eyes. “I’ll probably side with you, so keep your head up, king. You’ve got an ally.”

Mark’s never felt more betrayed.

“I was just telling Mark about the traffic sign that Doyoung has in his living room,” Yuta says, “and for some inane reason, he doesn’t want to believe me.”

“Okay, yeah, no, Doyoung definitely does not have a traffic sign,” Donghyuck says.

“They doooo,” Yuta insists; both Mark and Donghyuck send him disbelieving looks. “God, I can’t stand you two. I’m giving you the best design tips and you choose to not believe me just because—why don’t you believe me, even?”

“It’s your rotten vibes, hyung,” Donghyuck says off-handedly, not even waiting fo Yuta to respond as he pulls Mark towards a set of kitchenware, much too excited. Mark looks over his shoulder to send Yuta an almost sheepish look and Yuta just shakes his head, more amused than anything, stuffing his hand in his pockets as he rushes to catch up with them.

.

They find themselves in front of Doyoung the next day.

Doyoung blinks, slowly, before he narrows his eyes at them and crosses his arms. “You both do realize the gravity of what you’re asking me to do, right? You realize I could lose my real life job over this?”

“Please,” Donghyuck says, “what could the punishment for stealing a stop sign be? Don’t be a wimp.”

Mark elbows Donghyuck, because talking like that’s certainly not winning them any favors from Doyoung. “You don’t have to help us, if you don’t want to,” he says, after takin a moment to think over his words so he doesn’t stumble over them as per usual. “We just… we really want to do this and we thought it’d be safer if you helped us? Since you have experience with this and all.”

It’s the right thing to say, it seems, considering Doyoung’s hard gaze softens considerably so as he sighs.

“God, you make me sound like such a fucking criminal,” he says. Donghyuck opens his mouth to say something that’d get them back to square one, definitely, but thankfully closes it as soon as Mark kicks his ankle under the table. “I really don’t have as much experience with stealing traffic signs as you seem to think I do.”

“But you have some experience,” Donghyuck says. “More than us.”

“I’ve stolen a traffic sign once,” Doyoung says, his cheeks blooming pink as he readjusts in his seat. “Once,” he emphasizes, “and only because I was tipsy enough to let Johnny convince me it was a good idea.”

As it turned out, Yuta wasn’t actually lying or trying to prank Mark this time. When Donghyuck and Mark forced their way into Doyoung’s apartment earlier that afternoon, the no-entry sign was resting against Doyoung’s living room wall, plain and clear. Mark pulled together a half-hearted apology to Yuta, sending it off in a text, and Yuta responds with _ur paying 4 my coffee 2morrow xx_

They both know it’s not going to come to that, but Mark saved face and begrudgingly agreed to the hang-out, figuring he’ll force Donghyuck to come, too.

“It is a good idea,” Mark says, now, “and it’s a good idea to help us, isn’t it?” He doesn’t want to say that he and Donghyuck will do it alone if Doyoung doesn’t help, considering how close that verges to manipulation, but it’s not like it’s not true. “You don’t have to, though. If you don’t want to. We’re not going to force you.”

Doyoung looks at them, eyes flitting between Donghyuck and Mark as he chews on the inside of his cheek. A glance at Donghyuck reveals he’s looking up at Doyoung with his hands folded together in his lap, eyes open wide, a near perfect picture of innocence, and Mark tries to adjust his posture to match.

“No,” he says.

“It’s just one sign,” Donghyuck whines. “You stole one! Why can’t we?”

“Can’t you just take the one I got, if you want to have an edgy apartment?”

“It’s not just about the sign,” Donghyuck says, sinking deeper into his chair. “It’s the experience. If we just wanted a sign so bad, we could fucking I don’t know, get Johnny to make one or something.”

“I really don’t think that’s his area of expertise—”

“—hyung, come on,” Donghyuck cuts Mark off. He toys with the hem of his sweater, quiet for a second as he collects his thoughts. “We don’t ask you for much, you know. Can’t you just help us with this and we won’t bother you again?”

Doyoung sighs.

“You’re not bothering me,” he says, firstly, even if it really doesn’t seem like that’s the case. “And—god, the two of you are going to be the end of me.” He pauses, seemingly for emphasis, and adds, “just one sign.”

Donghyuck doesn’t even try to hold back his cheering.

“Is that a yes?” Mark asks, just to make sure.

“What else could it be?” Doyoung says, almost exasperated. He’s smiling when Mark joins in with Donghyuck on his cheering, waiting until they’ve relatively calmed down to say, “we’re going to do it on my terms, though. And only once. I better not catch you pulling this stunt again, you hear me?”

“Sir yes sir!” Donghyuck yells, punctuating it with a salute, and Doyoung just rolls his eyes fondly, shaking his head at him as he leans back in his chair.

.

Stealing the traffic sign with Doyoung, to say the least, is hell.

For one, he doesn’t contact them for a few days after it, saying he’ll just pick them up. By day three of no talk about the sign, Mark’s convinced that Doyoung’s just waiting for them to forget about it. That doesn’t turn out to be the case—on Saturday, just short of an hour after Mark and Donghyuck called it a day and went to sleep, they’re woken up by loud banging on their door.

It’s four am.

Mark almost pisses his pants.

“You’re fucking insane,” he says, when he opens the door to find Johnny standing there, looking too happy for his own good. He would’ve ignored the banging—had plans to, even—but Donghyuck gets a call from Doyoung, telling them that Johnny’s at their door. “You do know that, right?”

Johnny just laughs.

They end up in Doyoung’s car less than ten minutes later; while Johnny and Doyoung are rather dressed for the occasion, dark clothes punctuated with a dark beanie, at least in Johnny’s case, Mark feels a little out of place in his bright windbreaker. Donghyuck, too, has thrown on an extremely characteristic sweatshirt imprinted with their old high school emblem, but he doesn’t seem to pay it any mind, much too excited.

Mark admits he shares the sentiment, despite the annoyance brewing in his stomach at the fatigue he hasn’t been able to sleep away.

“Why’d you get Johnny to join you?” Mark whines, maybe a bit too bitter. “I didn’t know we were making this like, a big thing.”

“I thought you liked my company, Mark,” Johnny teases.

“We need someone tall to actually take the sign off,” Doyoung says, adjusting the rearview mirror. He catches Mark’s eyes in it and frowns. “You know we can call this off if you want to, yeah?”

Mark sighs, leaning back in his chair as Donghyuck gives him a warning look. “I know,” he says, “I do want to do this. Just, you know, a warning would’ve been nice. A text that we were going to do this today? Not you two pulling shit like this.”

“I told you we’d do it on my terms.” Doyoung, the asshole, smiles. “You could’ve asked what that entailed. Like Donghyuck.”

Donghyuck immediately perks up at the praise, beaming.

“What do you mean, _like Donghyuck_?”

“He means I thought ahead and asked him about it,” Donghyuck brags, sure that he’s _so_ smart. He just might be, at least in this case. “Didn’t you?”

“Was I supposed to?” Mark says, before he shakes his head, “also, why didn’t you tell me? Couldn’t you have told me about it?”

“Doyoung and I thought it’d be funny if you were taken by surprise,” Donghyuck says and hits the back of Doyoung’s seat in an imitation of a high five. “Though, to be fair, Johnny cosplaying a murderer or some shit was of his own volition. If anything, he’s to blame.”

“You literally told me to do that—”

“—don’t try to pin your crimes on me, hyung,” Donghyuck says. “You’re a grown man. I think you should start taking responsibility for your actions.”

“I take responsibility for my actions,” Johnny says, “unlike some.”

“Top ten shady AF comebacks,” Donghyuck says. “Go king give us everything!”

“I just wish you’d told me,” Mark sulks, trying not to be too petulant as he rests his head on the car door and fights the urge to close his eyes. He’d be fine with it, normally, even amused, but the past week of classes has been particularly tiring and he’d really been hoping to get some rest—and not be startled out of his skin by Johnny.

Donghyuck glances at him and, in a wordless apology, grasps his hand, intertwining their fingers. Despite himself, Mark starts to feel his irritation simmer out of him as he squeezes Donghyuck’s hand.

The sign that they’re stealing, as it turns out, is a wild animals sign, startling black deer against a white background paired with a red brim. Mark’s disappointed when he sees it—though considerably less so when Donghyuck says he’s the one who picked it.

“We’re gonna have to move quickly after the WD-40 starts working,” Doyoung says, working on setting up the wrench so it fits the bolts and removes them quickly. They’re standing several meters away from the sign, trying their best not too look suspiciously and failing considerably. “Johnny’s going to take care off the bolts and then the two of you can all it off the post, but you’re going to be careful because it’s shit heavy.”

“Aw, can’t we help with the bolts?” Donghyuck asks, lifting his chin from where it’s resting on Mark’s shoulder. “Otherwise it’s just Johnny stealing a sign and us taking it off the post.”

“Do you even know how to operate a wrench?” Mark asks.

“It can’t be _that_ hard,” Donghyuck whines, half-heartedly kicking the back of Mark’s shin, “it’s a wrench.”

“If you take more than just a couple of minutes at each bolt, we’re gonna get caught,” Doyoung says, “or the risk of us getting caught is going to go up, even if it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of cars on the road.”

“There isn’t a lot of cars on the road,” Johnny says, from where he’s got his elbow propped up on Doyoung’s shoulder, much to Doyoung’s dismay. He’s finished his task of dousing the nuts with WD-40 to ready them for removal a couple of minutes earlier and Doyoung’s been taking advantage of the five to ten minutes they should wait before continuing to go over the plan. “Which isn’t a surprise, because it’s four am—and it’s also why we’re going this at four am, so there’s not a lot of cars. Let them go crazy and remove a bolt or two, Doie.”

“Yeah, let us go crazy and remove a bolt or two, Doie,” Donghyuck parrots.

“That’s not a good idea,” Doyoung says. “That kind of shit is gonna end up in us getting arrested, you do know that, right?”

“It’s not gonna end up in us getting arrested,” Johnny rolls his eyes, “we were a lot less careful stealing the first one. If they take a lot of time unscrewing the bolts and we get caught, so be it. Or we can just drive away and then go bail them out later or whatever.”

“This is not a good idea,” Doyoung insists, again, though he hands the wrench to Donghyuck anyway. “You have to be quick, Hyuck, got it? We can do one at a time or something, maybe that’ll go smoother.”

“Aren’t they too high for us to reach?” Mark asks, giving the sign a doubtful glance. “Should we have brought like… a step-stool or something?”

“A step-stool,” Donghyuck deadpans. He hits Mark’s shoulder for extra emphasis as he says, “you want to use a step-stool to steal a traffic sign?”

“That is a little insane,” Johnny agrees.

“Johnny can hoist you up or something,” Doyoung cuts in, “you can help each other out. It’s not that hard, not that high up. You’ll be able to do it.”

Mark not tries to let the doubt he feels at their plan succeeding show in his expression as he turns to look at Donghyuck, who’s barely able to keep the excitement he feels contained. He’s grinning, happiness blasting through his eyes, and Mark lets his doubts spill away. If they get in trouble for this, so be it; it doesn’t matter, so long as Donghyuck’s still by his side.

The process goes rather easily, for all the worrying that Mark’s done. Donghyuck, despite what little experience he might’ve had with the wrench, manages to unscrew the bolt in a few quick movements. If anything, it’s Mark who has problems with it and needs Johnny to step in, needs him to use his strength and tug the bolt, slipping the nut off after not much work. He and Doyoung direct Mark and Donghyuck to the front of the sign, making them take it off the post gently, making sure not to let the edges of the sign injure their palms.

.

“It’s going to clash like shit with the Żabka sign,” Doyoung says, when he and Johnny carry it into the apartment, just as it nears seven am. “Do you seriously want it in your living room? You already have so much shit here.”

“Doie’s kinda got a point,” Johnny agrees. “It’s going to end up looking kitschy as shit.”

“As if doesn’t already look a bit kitschy,” Doyoung mutters, and Donghyuck and Mark pretend not to hear. He sighs, circling around their apartment, peering at the empty spaces, which are few and in between now, their home filled with little trinkets at every turn. “The hallway, maybe?”

“It’s not going to be able to live up to its full potential in the hallway,” Donghyuck says. “This is a trophy. It needs to be presented as such.”

“You sound like some shitty hunter,” Mark says. His mood’s considerably improved since Johnny dragged them out of bed, after seeing Donghyuck so excited and carefree—and also after getting coffee. Currently, he’s reclining on the couch, holding Donghyuck close while Doyoung peers at every corner of their apartment and Johnny kicks his feet up onto their coffee table from where he’s sitting on the joker chair. “Are you going to get a furry deer head in your bedroom, next? A fun bear rug?”

Donghyuck scrunches up his nose at Mark. “You think you’re so fucking funny, don’t you?”

“Sometimes, yeah,” Mark says, resting his cheek on the back cushion of the couch, looking up at Donghyuck. “I think I’m a bit of a comedian, personally.”

“Don’t ever try to go into stand-up, though,” Donghyuck says, “you’d end up like the joker, embarrassed on TVP and I’d have to, I don’t know. Live with being your roommate.”

“Just my roommate?”

“If any embarrassing footage of you gets out, then yeah, to all news sources, I’m just your roommate,” Donghyuck says and Mark lets out a whine, hitting his side. “Met you by chance on some roommate board. A facebook page. Met you by chance on a facebook meme page and we both just so happened to need roommates…”

“I think you’re just into roleplaying,” Mark says, laughing when Donghyuck jabs his fingers into his sides, tickling him. “Stop! Sorry, sorry. By all means, do go on with your fucking facebook meme romcom. Don’t let me stop you.”

“I cannot stand you, Mark. I can’t believe you hate talent and success and—”

“—what if you put it in your kitchen?” Doyoung calls from—the kitchen, probably, Mark thinks—effectively cutting Donghyuck off. “It could look nice in the kitchen.”

“What would wild animals do in the kitchen?” Johnny bites back.

Doyoung sighs, coming into the living room and resting his arms on the back of the joker chair, flicking Johnny’s head. “The—well, maybe in the bathroom, then?”

“Doie, you’re a betonowe kółko ratunkowe,” Johnny says and Doyoung kicks the joker chair hard, making Donghyuck laugh. “You’re not made out to be an interior designer, against all odds.”

“Do I need to remind you that it’s not your apartment?” Doyoung says, “shut the fuck up. Maybe they want to have the sign in their bathroom.”

“We don’t,” Donghyuck says, sitting up from where he was leaning on Mark, “or, well, I don’t, but I also have the power of veto with me and shit, so. We’ll probably just end up hanging it in our living room.”

“You already have so much fucking shit in your living room, though,” Johnny says, quick to switch sides. “Won’t it look, well. You know. Like you just threw a bunch of trash together and called it a day?”

“I think it’s got a vibe,” Mark cuts in. Donghyuck glances back at him over his shoulders—and Mark’s so, so happy. “Maybe it doesn’t have _Nasz Nowy Dom_ levels of aesthetics and it definitely looks like two uni kids live here, but, you know. I think it works.”

“I think it works, too,” Donghyuck says, voice low, and whatever their hyungs say next is drowned out by his smile.

.

The sign ends up hanging in their living room, not too far from the Żabka frog. It looks a bit atrocious, if Mark’s to be serious, but he think it’s got its own vibe to it.

That might be just him being biased, though.

Somehow, in the few months that they’ve lived in their apartment, their living room’s gone from being terribly bland to full of evidence that they lived there. The rug that Donghyuck picked out, a plain black one, succeeded in bringing the furniture together, making it seem as if it almost actually matched. The drawings on the wall they’ve done over the past week, letting their hyungs chime in with their own decorated the wall opposite their couch and while they might’ve gone a bit overboard—Mark had no fucking clue how they were going to hide that from their landlord, but they’ll figure it out—it certainly added to the atmosphere, making them seem a little insane. The rest of the walls all around their apartment were filled with pictures and the occasional poster, with shelves stacked full of small memorabilia and a few of Mark’s old Littlest Pet Shop toys, and the Polly Pocket airplane they’d managed to quote unquote steal from Donghyuck’s childhood home.

All in all, it definitely felt like home, now.

“I think we’ve done a surprisingly good job here,” Mark tells Donghyuck, the following week. They’re technically supposed to be preparing for the housewarming party they’re to be hosting on Saturday, but are instead working on putting together a lego set. “I think the decor’s complete, kinda. We can ease up on keeping an eye out for any more shit.”

“I think if we found something nice, we could still improve it,” Donghyuck says, shifting idly through the lego pieces. “Always room for improvement and shit.”

“Mhm,” Mark hums in agreement, “I kinda like it as is, now. Don’t think it necessarily needs anything more.”

“Not even the lego train set?

“Maybe the lego train set,” he grins back at Donghyuck, who only holds his gaze for a second. “Think it’d look nice on the coffee table?”

“I think it’d bang on the coffee table,” Donghyuck says, “you’d knock it over immediately, though, and ruin all of our hard work.”

“I would not.”

“Would, too,” Donghyuck says, not even looking up as he throws a spare lego piece at Mark, missing terribly. “You always knock shit off the coffee table.”

“I don’t knock shit off the coffee table—”

“—you do,” Donghyuck presses. “You broke my Eeyore cup on Wednesday by knocking it off the table. Do you not remember that?”

“I remember that,” Mark says. He has to bite his tongue to keep from telling Donghyuck that he’s already bought a replacement, considering that he wants to surprise Donghyuck with it when it comes in the mail the following week. “And you know I’m sorry for that. But it’s not like I knock shit off the coffee table all the time.”

“Do you need me to bring up more examples?”

“No,” Mark says, because he knows that Donghyuck’s right. Donghyuck’s right and he does knock shit off the coffee table every few weeks, even if he won’t admit it out loud. Trying to defend his honor is only going to end up in them bickering, which isn’t necessarily bad, but he’s more in the mood for a quiet night, today. “No more.”

“So you admit you are rather careless with the coffee table and the shit on top it?” Donghyuck asks.

“Fine,” Mark pushes past his lips. “Yes. Sometimes.”

Donghyuck smiles, lips curling in the way they do when he’s triumphant, self-satisfied. Even so, he’s only able to hold Mark’s eyes for a second before he looks down again and that’s unusual; typically, he practically challenges Mark’s gaze, for no reason other than being a little vain and full of himself.

He doesn’t do that now, which can only mean something’s sitting on his nerves.

Mark chews on the inside of his cheeks, before he figures there’s no sense beating around the bush. “Is something wrong?”

A few seconds pass before Donghyuck looks up, almost defeated. “Can’t hide shit from you, these days,” he says, letting the lego man he was holding slip to the ground as he stands. Mark furrows his brows, confused, and Donghyuck holds out a hand for him. “Come on. I have—I might have something to show you?”

“Something to show me?” Mark asks, taking Donghyuck’s hand and letting him haul him up, ignoring the way Donghyuck’s voice cracked. “Are you moving out or some shit?”

“You’d want that, wouldn’t you,” Donghyuck intertwines his fingers with Mark’s, holding his hand tight as he leads him through their apartment to his bedroom. “Would post a whole think-piece about it on reddit. Am I, twenty male, the asshole for being happy my boyfriend, nineteen male, moved out?”

“I would not write that, shut up,” Mark says, hoping Donghyuck doesn’t notice the way he pales considerably. He has written posts about them on reddit before, though they’ve been more in the _I (20M) am so in love with my boyfriend/roommate (19M) it hurts, is this normal?_ vein than the one Donghyuck’s suggesting. “What do you have to show me?”

“I was going to save it for the housewarming party,” Donghyuck tells him as they stop next to his bedroom door. He uses his free hand to tug on Mark’s belt buckle idly, suddenly awfully shy. “Wanted to make it a big deal, like one of those stupid engagement parties. A gender reveal party plagiarism moment.”

“This isn’t an mpreg tease, is it?”

Donghyuck sends Mark a disgusted look. Mark figures he wholeheartedly deserves that.

“Anyway, um,” Donghyuck says, “it’s kinda—it turned out not exactly how I wanted it to, and it’s not the best, but it’s—it’s for you? Or less for you, if that makes sense, and more dedicated to you… God, you know what I mean. I was thinking of you when making it and shit.”

And it clicks in Mark’s head; his mouth falls open.

“The—the wire sculpture,” he says, “did you finish it? Is that what you’re going to show me?”

“Yes,” Donghyuck says and Mark’s going to explode. “It’s—obviously it’s still good, since I was the one to make it, but it’s, you know. I don’t know. It’s a little quirky. Lower your expectations a little.”

Mark nods, knowing he won’t. Knowing that whatever Donghyuck’s made is going to blow away all his expectations anyway, proving to be so much better than them.

“Okay,” he says, and Donghyuck opens the door.

There’s something sitting amongst the mess on Donghyuck’s desk, covered with a blanket of sorts. Mark watches as Donghyuck heads straight towards it, covering it with his back as he lifts the blanket, throwing it carelessly on the floor, and lifts the sculpture.

“It’s—honestly, I’ve got no fucking clue what we can do with it,” he says as he turns to show it to Mark, who goes a little speechless. “It wouldn’t really work as a great mantel piece—not that we’ve got a fireplace for that, but you get my point.”

“Shit, Donghyuck,” Mark says, when it’s clear that Donghyuck won’t continue. He reaches out to run his fingers over the sculpture; it’s a pair of hands, wound tightly around each other. A warm embrace. “It’s—it’s amazing. What’s it mean?”

A warm embrace that Donghyuck made, thinking of Mark.

“It’s a bit stupid,” Donghyuck says.

“I’m sure it’s not.”

Donghyuck takes a deep breath, “it’s like… you remember what I told you the topic was? Habitat? I took it more to mean home. And shit. You know, it’s not a too out-of-the-blue connection to make. The rest is self-explanatory, I think.”

“I’d like to hear you say it, though,” Mark says, grinning when Donghyuck gives him a borderline annoyed look. “Just to, you know. Be sure.”

“You’re so infuriating,” Donghyuck tells him. “The meaning’s simple, you idiot. It means—it means you’re my home. It means I can’t imagine living with anyone else. It means the past few months, of us just decorating and getting shit for this dump of an apartment have been the happiest months of my life, probably. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Yeah, actually,” Mark says, “cause it’s the same for me.”

And Donghyuck looks at him, then, eyes kind and warm and so happy, a bit watery, and Mark can’t take it. He reaches out, cupping Donghyuck’s cheek, kissing him softly.

“You make me so happy,” he says, after pulling away, “and I’m so fucking ecstatic that we got to do this. I wouldn’t trade this for anything else.”

“You’re such a fucking sap,” Donghyuck says, sniffling a little, and Mark’s generous enough to not point it out. “I can’t stand you sometimes, you know that?”

“That’s not true,” Mark counters easily.

“That’s not true,” Donghyuck sighs, glancing down at the sculpture in his hands. “So what do we want to do with this?”

“We can get a fireplace to make it the mantelpiece,” Mark suggests and Donghyuck laughs, the sound imprinting itself neatly into Mark’s brain. Mark wishes that he’ll never stop hearing Donghyuck laugh like this, that he’ll never stop making Donghyuck laugh like this, loud and carefree and happy.

.

Needless to say, the housewarming party is an overwhelming success; their hyungs flood the house, making knowing glances at Mark after passing Donghyuck’s sculpture, which they’ve placed on one of their living room bookshelves, right next to Mark’s collection of Agatha Christie novels.

Johnny manages to stop himself from making biting comments about their decor, instead hanging around Doyoung and borderline bullying him the whole night. Yuta doesn’t get a chance to criticize it either, having to busy himself with fending off Jungwoo, but the glances he casts around the apartment are appreciative. It’s the same with Taeyong, Taeil, and Jaehyun, who look more surprised at how Donghyuck and Mark managed to make the apartment appear almost coherent and nice, in spite of all the rather kitschy and childish decorations.

Even if their reaction was the complete opposite, though, Mark thinks, it wouldn’t be enough to make his good mood evaporate. Donghyuck’s of seemingly the same opinion, rolling his eyes good-naturedly at Mark from across the room when Jungwoo tries to give him tips on how to add to the decor.

All in all, it’s nice.

“There you are,” Donghyuck says, as he steps onto the balcony. Mark looks up at him from where he’s leaning on the railings, busy surveying the building tops as the party continues in their apartment. “Thought you might’ve left.”

“I’m not a terrible host,” Mark says. Donghyuck comes up to stand next to him, giving Mark an unimpressed look. “I’m not! I’d say I’m a pretty good host.”

“You’re hiding from all the guests on the balcony.”

“You are, too.”

“I—yeah,” Donghyuck says. “I never said I’m a good host, though.”

“I just know you thought it, though,” Mark points out; Donghyuck’s poker face crumbles with a smile. “Did you need my help with something, though?”

“Not exactly,” Donghyuck says. “I just wanted to—I left a lot unsaid, yesterday, I think.”

“You told me this is the happiest you’ve ever been,” Mark lightly knocks his shoulder into Donghyuck’s. “I don’t think that qualifies as leaving a lot unsaid, actually.”

“You’re making this harder for me than it has to be,” Donghyuck says with a small laugh. “I just wanted to—I just wanted to tell you I’m the happiest I’ve ever been because of you. In case that wasn’t clear. I don’t think—I don’t think anyone’s ever made me as happy as you do, on the reg, even if I don’t act like it, half the time. But it’s true, you know. You make me happy.”

“Now you’re just plagiarizing what I told you.”

“I’m not,” Donghyuck argues, rolling his eyes, “I just… I wanted to make sure you know that. I hope you know that.”

Mark smiles, quiet for a moment as he eyes Donghyuck. He’s almost glowing under the light of the moon, eyes shining bright against the fringe falling into his eyes.

“I know that,” he says, bringing an arm around Donghyuck’s shoulder. His thumb rubs Donghyuck’s arm, skipping over the fabric of his sweater easily. “And, you know. I’m happy that’s the case.”

“Just don’t let it go to your head,” Donghyuck muses, if only to save face. He lets the sounds of the city envelop them tightly before he says, almost too quiet for Mark to hear, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Mark says, and he doesn’t think he’s ever meant anything more.

**Author's Note:**

> hope u enjoyed <333 and once again happy birthday!!!! <33 i love you sm <33
> 
> come say hi on [twitter](https://twitter.com/frouggyu) // [buy me a ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/frougge)


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